The Spirit Room (46 page)

She looked down at her American Costume. It was true. She had set out with no protection from the cold. Her hands were deep red and, she realized, quite painful.

“
I have written Dr. Cook and described your case.” His voice was quiet. “Cook wrote me in return and said that if the water-cure did not resolve your condition in a few months, and he doubted that it would, we should visit him and consider a consultation, possibly a stay.”

Izzie bolted out of her chair and paced away from him to one of the grand windows. The side lawn was to be a lovely, colorful flower garden for the water-cure patients, but now it was a blank slate of snow and ice. At the perimeter of the grounds, tree limbs hung low burdened by shining ice. It would be a long time before they’d bud, before the garden could be planted.

She couldn’t look at Mac in that moment. He had just proposed putting her away in an asylum, maybe for a few weeks, maybe forever. She didn’t know what would happen. The ice out there would melt. That would happen, but would she be here to plant the garden outside the window?

“
Mac, you’ve been completely confident that you could cure me, rid me of the voices. I came to believe you.”

Then she felt his arm, his side softly against her. He gazed out the window with her.

“
If you keep up every detail of the treatment, the wet sheets, the baths, the water consumption, along with utilizing your mental discipline, I believe I will succeed and you will be well.”

Trembling, she pulled away and spun toward him. “That’s it, isn’t Mac? You will succeed. Not I. You. I am the one struggling, but you’ll be the one to succeed. I’ll make you famous. I’ll be the first documented case of insanity cured with water. Doctor Robert MacAdams will be written about, consulted by physicians from around the world.”

His bushy black eyebrows furrowed down. “You think this?”

“
I always had the sense that I was an experiment for you, many experiments, one after another, but I didn’t object because I was interested in what you were learning, what your mind was pursuing. But I have come to wonder whether I am a woman to you, a wife, or simply a case study.”

He took both her hands. “But, Izzie, you and I are both experimenters in life. That is why I chose you for my wife. I thought you were someone who wanted to explore everything new, everything with me. I never thought I’d find a woman with an intellect like yours. It is your very inquisitiveness that I fell in love with.”

He did love her and she believed this about both their minds being eager for new notions and philosophies, but all the ideas seemed to be his. Every idea had come out of him so fast she never had a chance to discover her own sense of things.

She withdrew her hands from his. “They are your experiments, Mac, not mine. The preventative techniques, the water-cure for the mind, the vegetarianism.” She looked down at her green short skirt and trousers. “You’ve even dressed me in the American Costume to suit your reform ideals.”

“
You told me you’d come to love the reform dress. They are your ideals too, ideals we share, aren’t they?”

She sighed. “I don’t know what my ideals are. I am so exhausted from lack of sleep I can scarcely stand here.” She turned toward the window and the white expanse. “I’d like to lie down out there. It’s pure. Maybe I’d sleep, then.”

He took her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Everything I have done has been for you, for our life together.”

“
Not everything. There are two things I’ve wanted these past months besides being your wife and being by your side. One was to sleep and be free of the haunting voices. You’ve tried to help me with that. The other has been to see Clara and the others with my own eyes to make sure my father hasn’t been harming them. You’ve refused me that.”

“
One can’t do everything one wants in the moment. There are responsibilities, necessities that come first.”

“
That’s right. Now my sisters and brother are just that. I am going tomorrow. I have to know if Papa is harming them. If I don’t like what I see, I am bringing all three of them back here with me to live with us.”

“
Izzie, we’ve been over this a hundred times. If they were as miserable as you imagine, you’d know it. Clara would write you and tell you. Besides, we are in debt. Three more mouths to feed would be impossible.”

Izzie cast her eyes around the huge office. “We have this entire building, the out buildings. We have room, Mac. They could even work for you. You said yourself you need many hands to run this place.”

She backed away from him and his worried eyes and walked to the office door. The way home would be cold, but she could race along to keep warm.

She opened the door and looked back at him. Standing there by the big window, he had never seemed so small to her. “As long as it is running, I’ll be on the early train, and be back in a few days. I’m finished with the water-cure treatments. You can enter into your case log that I was not cured, quite the opposite.”

As she walked down the hall, she heard him say, “Wait, take my coat,” but she kept on without looking back at him.

Thirty-Four

CLARA AND EUPHORA SAT TOGETHER on the canal wall, dangling their legs over the side. Ice on the Cayuga & Seneca Canal was a foot thick, maybe more. It was Sunday afternoon and skaters were swirling, racing, and careening in ones, twos, and threes. This was the town’s favorite spot for skating, not far up from the lake, just past the Malt House. After every snowfall, a gaggle of boys shoveled it, sometimes all the way up to Marsh Creek. Papa had told them he had a surprise and that he wanted to cheer them up since Billy hadn’t come back or even written yet. “Ice skating is the thing. It’ll lift your spirits.” Somehow he had borrowed, or maybe stolen, two pairs of ladies’ ice skates. He stood below them on the ice lacing up one of Euphora’s skates with his bare, chapped hands. Clara noticed that he hadn’t purchased new gloves yet.

She smiled to herself at the thought of Billy’s hands being warm while Papa’s were practically frostbitten. Maybe Papa still believed Billy would come back and he’d get his gloves back from him. Papa was still threatening to go up to Rochester and see if he was with Izzie. “I’ll drag him back by the ear,” he kept saying. But Clara was pretty sure it was just talk. Papa probably knew in his gut that Billy was long gone. She missed Billy every hour of every day and the more hours that went by, the more she hated Papa for beating Billy and making him go.

Papa grabbed Euphora by the waist and hoisted her down onto the ice. She squealed as the skates slid out of control underneath her, but Papa kept a tight hold of her, waiting until she steadied. When Euphora seemed like she was going to stay upright, he guided her hands to the edge of the canal wall.

“
Wait right there until Clara’s ready.”

Beaming up at Clara, Euphora was eager to try her first time on ice skates.

Why did Papa have to do this, Clara wondered. Why did he have to turn into the old Papa when she had finally decided to hate him forever? Why did he try to win her heart back and why was he trying to win over Euphora? Clara could hear Billy’s words. “He wants somethin’, sure-as-rain.” Euphora was starting to inch away along the ice, using the wall to keep from falling. While Papa slipped skates onto Clara’s feet, she started counting the skaters, first the girls younger than her, fourteen of those. Then girls older than her, nine of those.

“
Yours’re too big, but I laced them tight,” he said.

“
Look!” Euphora was about twenty feet away, close to the wall but standing on her own.

“
Careful, Rosebud.” Papa ran to her, leaving Clara perched up on the wall.

Rosebud
. He hadn’t called Euphora that since she was three or four. That was his red-hair-darling-girl name for her when she was little.

“
Take my hand. I’ll bring you along,” he said.

A young arms-entwined couple glided by like two flying swans. Euphora offered her green mittened hand to Papa and he began to trot along the ice, just fast enough to get her skating. Legs stiff like a couple of fence posts, Euphora careened forward, then careened back, forward, back, forward and finally bent forward in a permanent crouch. She gripped Papa’s hand in both hers and let him pull her along over the ice.

“
Clara, look!” Euphora glided into the crowd with Papa.

From up on the wall, Clara glanced down at the ice three feet below her. It seemed too far to jump and land on the two skinny blades.
Dang
. Papa had left her stuck there on the wall like a piece of laundry pinned to a line. She had skated back in Ohio. She knew how to go ahead, back, and stop, but hopping down a three-foot distance onto the blades made her nervous. Out of nowhere, John Reilly skated right up to her, scraping the toes of his skates at a pitch and grinding to a halt. He was wearing his Sunday best, stovepipe hat, handsome black coat covering his round belly, red and black checked satin bow-tie, shiny leather gloves, dove gray and black striped trousers.

“
Good afternoon, Miss Clara.” He tipped his hat. “Do you need assistance getting down?” He looked into the mass of skaters toward Papa. “I think you have been deserted.”

Tarnation
. He was the last person on the entire earth she wanted to see. He offered his outstretched hands. Why did he have to be here now? Grasping his hands, she used one of her heels to shove off the wall down to the ice. When she landed, she lunged forward toward Reilly. For a tiny instant, she thought she was going to land flat on her face, but Reilly pulled her up. She came back like a seesaw and steadied herself.

“
Almost lost you.” He offered an elbow. “Shall we?”

She surveyed the crowd. Was anyone watching her and Reilly? Could any of them tell how she knew him? Could they see how he desired her? Would he be angry if she refused him and skated away? She sighed. She made a lot of money from his attentions. Offending him would get Papa shirty for certain. Besides that, she’d need that money someday.

“
I may freeze into a snowman standing here with my arm flapping in the wind. Come, then.” He grinned at her.

Giving in, she took his arm and he set off striding toward the outskirts of the crowd. All she had to do was hold on and skate enough to keep up. They passed Papa and Euphora, but Papa had his back to her and didn’t notice them. While Euphora stood still balancing on Papa’s hand, he was talking intently to her about something. Clara wanted to go back and listen. What was he saying to her?

Two girls skating in a pair raced full out toward Reilly, charging right for him.

“
Papa, we’re cold. Can we go home now?”

Jo-fire
. He had daughters? The girl who spoke had thick brown eyebrows, pale white skin with large light freckles and wide green-gray eyes. She didn’t know he had daughters. They both looked at Clara intently, probably wondering who she was.

“
Girls, this is Clara Benton, the famous Geneva medium. You’ve seen her on the handbills. She’s the daughter of an associate of mine, Frank Benton.” He smiled at them, raised one brow, as though beckoning some response from them.

“
Good afternoon, Miss Benton.” They chimed perfectly, a duet. The pale one was a bit younger than Euphora. The other just a year or so younger than that.

“
These are my daughters, Helen and Fannie. I’ll leave you to your father, Miss Benton.” Dropping her arm gently, he gestured in Papa’s direction. “Is that your younger sister with him?”

“
No. I don’t know who that is.” Swallowing hard, she tried to look at him without blinking. She didn’t want him knowing anything about Euphora or her knowing anything about him.

He smirked at her. “Well, good afternoon, Miss Benton. I must be on my way.” He tipped his stovepipe hat at her.

After he skated away with Helen and Fannie, Clara glided toward Papa and Euphora. Euphora was skating four or five steps in a scuffle toward Papa, then landing against him for balance. Papa would back away, then she would skate at him again, a baby learning to walk. Clara skated a circle around them three times then coasted away, weaving between the boys, girls, couples, and families. She skated up the canal to the very end of the snow-cleared area near the mouth of Marsh Creek. She paused where the creek gurgled its way under the canal ice. If the canal was completely cleared of snow, she could skate away, wherever the canal went, to the next town, and the next. She could glide as far as her legs could take her, maybe all the way to Izzie in Rochester.

“
We can come back again another time. Rosebud’s getting’ the knack. She’s quick.”

Clara turned. Papa was coming toward her with Euphora skating in little choppy steps on her own behind him.

“
Clara, I’m skating!”

Euphora seemed happier than she had been in a while, certainly since Billy had left. Papa stopped and Euphora clamped herself to his arm.