We Hear the Dead (9 page)

Our niece fell to her knees and, sobbing, begged her mother to have mercy. Kate sent me a plaintive look, and I cringed, feeling just as guilty. Leah turned her back on her daughter and faced her three guests: “The spirits have spoken their will. It shall be done as they say.”

***

Two days later, a pale and tearful Lizzie mounted a hired carriage while the driver hoisted up a trunk full of her belongings. Leah had already wired a curt telegram to her former husband, Bowman Fish, announcing the imminent arrival of his daughter. Lizzie would be visiting with her father, whom she had not seen in years, for an indefinite period.

Leah stood in the street outside our house with arms folded and watched her leave.

“This is harsh, even for Leah,” commented Kate, watching from an upstairs window.

“Don't you be fooled,” I replied. “Leah loves her daughter. If we get caught in this foolishness, Lizzie will be safe out west. After the performance the other night, no one will ever accuse Lizzie of being a party to our lies.”

Maggie

That summer, it seemed the fashionable thing to do in Rochester, New York, was to make an evening visit to the parlor of Mrs. Leah Fish on Prospect Street to hear the spirit rappers.

Visitors began arriving around teatime, often bringing gifts of jams and bread, sugary confections, or sometimes hair ribbons for me and Kate. Callers who came often, seeing the meager household run by Leah, gifted us with more practical items such as candles or lamp oil. New acquaintances were quickly charmed by the friendly and forthright manner for which Leah and Mother were known, and no one left without remarking on “those pretty girls!”

As darkness fell, we would commence our spirit circles, sometimes holding two in an evening. Spirits rapped, tables moved, the curtains rustled, and bells rang. Participants gasped in astonishment, awed by the physical manifestations and the uncanny ability of the unseen rappers to identify correct answers written on paper. After each long evening, Kate and I would fall to our beds in exhaustion, having played out as much mischief as any two girls could desire.

Still, this swell of visitors flush with gifts did not provide enough to sustain our household. Because Leah had nearly given up her piano lessons, Mother began to fret over how her daughter would maintain her residence in this expensive part of town.

About a month after our arrival, while hosting a spirit circle comprising our closest and most frequent visitors, the Grangers and the Posts, we suffered a long, awkward period of silence from the spirits. It was always uncomfortable when the spirits were not forthcoming, but Leah occasionally required this, and Kate and I were accustomed to obeying her commands. On this evening, after many plaintive but fruitless entreaties to the spirits, Leah finally gave a great sigh and clasped the hands of the people on either side of her.

“Good friends,” she began with great reluctance, “I fear the fault is mine. Worries of a secular nature have confounded my concentration, breaking our connection with those spiritual entities who no longer suffer from such troubles.”

When pressed by our concerned friends to elaborate, Leah tearfully explained that her income from piano lessons had vanished, as few pupils were still willing to come to her house. “I don't know how I will support the girls and my mother,” she confessed. “I don't know what will become of them if I have to give up my place in this house.”

Of course, we could have returned to my father's house in Hydesville and received ample support from his blacksmith work and the income from David's farm. This somehow escaped mention.

With downcast eyes and a hesitant voice, Leah then said, “A dear friend of mine has suggested that I require an entrance fee to our spirit circles, and while I scorned this idea from the start, I cannot endure the weight of our debt much longer. I hoped that you, my dear friends, would advise me on this matter.”

Mr. Post was quick to respond. “I think it is a capital idea, Mrs. Fish. No one would begrudge you recompense for your time and devotion to this spiritual endeavor. Even the spirits themselves, although they no longer have such physical needs, could not deny you the wherewithal to provide for your family.”

“I am in agreement,” Mr. Granger added. “It has long been in my mind that you should receive recompense—as Isaac here has put it—for inviting us into your home night after night and exhausting yourself mentally on our behalf.”

Leah shook her head as if fighting this unpleasant notion. “But what will people think if I, a woman without a husband, begin to accept money as an entrance fee to my home?”

Amy Post slapped her hand lightly upon the table. “A man can establish a respectable practice of business and charge a professional fee for his service. A woman should not be denied the same right.”

Thus my sister, “reluctantly,” of course, began the practice of charging a dollar a head for participation in our spirit circles. It happened with scarcely a ripple in the pattern of our lives. To be sure, Kate and I were largely unaware of the exchange of money, for it happened with careful discretion, and because a portion of it went to the purchase of fashionable dresses for the two of us, we were hardly likely to complain. After all, as Leah pointed out to our mother, people wishing to send a telegraph to living relatives must pay a fee. Why not expect that a spiritual telegraph would likewise require a surcharge?

For their dollar, our clients received words of gentle wisdom and, hopefully, solace for their grief. Our spirits were always kind and forgiving, promising an eternity of joy to the well deserving, and in their mercy, almost every person was deserving of heaven. As for those visitors more interested in the mysterious side of spirit communication, we could provide that as well. We kept Calvin's ingenuity busy all summer with our requests for ghostly manifestations.

The window curtain rolled up and down by itself. An unoccupied rocking chair began to rock on its own. A vase untouched by any hand tipped over the edge of a table and smashed on the floor, although Leah was quite vexed by that, and the spirits left her breakables alone thereafter.

It occurred to Kate that we could accomplish even more tricks if the room were darker, and so she asked Calvin if he could contrive a way to make the candles go out by themselves. After some consideration, Calvin hit upon a simple but effective solution. He snapped a candle and cut out the wick in the broken place. Then, by lighting the candle and using the dripping wax to conceal and repair the break, he made his tampering undetectable. Candles so treated burned normally until the breach in the wick was reached. After some experimentation, Calvin became expert at timing the failure of each candle, and so it was arranged that two separate candles, on opposite sides of the room, would sputter and go out within moments of each other, plunging the spirit circle into darkness.

Thus our summer progressed, and a core group of devoted spiritualists soon became the bulwark of our new enterprise. A newcomer to our circle of favorites was Mr. Eliab Capron, who, like my old friend E. E. Lewis, was a journalist, though a novice. Mr. Capron had read the Hydesville pamphlet written by the esteemed Mr. Lewis and was eager to learn more about our communication with the spirits.

The one person who continued to puzzle me was Amy Post. Originally, I had quailed at the thought of deceiving this formidable woman, whom I admired and respected for her advocacy of those who could not defend themselves. I admit to being somewhat disappointed that she was taken in so easily while conversely relieved that she did not expose our deception. As the months passed, I continued to observe her closely, for I was unable to classify her interest in spirit matters.

Once, when feeling brave, I broached the subject with Leah, who had spent the afternoon in private discussion with Mrs. Post. “Does Mrs. Post believe in our spirit rapping?” I asked tentatively, almost afraid of bursting a bubble that no one else had noticed floating among us.

Leah looked up from the letter she had been writing and gave me a sharp glance before asking, “Why do you ask such a thing? She is here nearly daily, and she has brought many important people to our circles.”

“Yes, she has,” I agreed. “Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Mott seemed very pleased that the spirits shared their convictions on women's suffrage. Some of the other people at the table were surprised that the spirits were so socially minded that night, but Amy Post and her friends took it very much in stride.”

“The spirits are very wise, of course,” murmured Leah, who had turned back to her letter.

“Mrs. Mott went so far as to ask me,” I continued, “if I couldn't manage to contact a spirit of some historical fame and acquire a testimonial from him regarding women's rights.”

Leah's pen faltered and dropped a blob of ink at this news, and she had to reach for a blotter. “What is your point, Margaretta?” she asked in annoyance.

“Do they actually believe, or are they using—”

“They have chosen to publicly state that they believe,” Leah said, fixing me with her no-nonsense eye. “That is good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you.”

Upon those words I had to be content. Amy Post believed in the spirits, or claimed that she believed, and because I shared most of Mrs. Post's views regarding the abolition of slavery and the rights of women, I was not averse to including support for these progressive issues in our spirits' messages. Part of me wondered whether the feminist portion of Mrs. Post's nature did not admire Leah's gumption at making a living at tricks worthy of Mr. P. T. Barnum himself.

***

One event marred our triumphant conquest of the Rochester social scene.

In the early fall, it happened that Kate challenged Calvin to make Leah's piano play by itself. We did not make much of this proposed trick at the time, because it was typical that Kate and I conceived the impossible, and quiet, unassuming Calvin proceeded to make it possible. After a few days of deliberation and examination of the piano mechanism, Calvin began to create his miracle.

He waited until Leah was out of the house, so that she could not prevent him from working on her beloved instrument. Then, selecting a low bass note because of its position farthest from an observer, he attached a dark thread to the hammer, ran it down through the bottom of the piano, along the side of one of the legs facing the wall, and into the floorboards. Under this floorboard, Calvin constructed a clever device that would pull the thread whenever the far end of the board was trod upon. One step on this rigged section of floor, and the thread would pull down the hammer, which also caused the key on the outside of the piano to depress as though by an invisible finger. No matter how I stuck my head inside the piano, I could not discern the guilty thread, even knowing that it was there.

When Leah returned, she screamed something awful, but no damage was done to the piano, and after she calmed down, she had to admit that the effect was very mysterious.

The piano began to toll its lone bass note soon after our first visitors arrived that afternoon. The first person to innocently walk past the piano leapt backward with a cry of alarm when the note rang out by itself. Quickly, others hurried over to investigate, and at seemingly random intervals, the same low note tolled again and again.

The beauty of the device was that none of the Fox family needed to approach the piano; in fact, my sisters and I made a point of keeping our distance. If too long a period went by without a sound from our invisible pianist, Calvin would stroll past, tread upon the board, and leap back convincingly at the consequential
bong!

Visitors came and went that long evening, some deliciously mystified by the one-note tune, and others frightened. A woman named Abigail Bush wrung her hands together and cried, “'Tis a death knell! It heralds a death! Somebody dear to this family is going to die!”

Kate and I struggled to contain our amusement in the face of Mrs. Bush's dire prediction. My mother, however, was greatly upset, and because of her agitation our guests excused themselves and dispersed. I noticed that Amy Post was one of the last to leave and that she tried to comfort Mother with a different interpretation of the evening's events: “Perhaps it duplicates the Bell of Liberty, commemorating the document of feminine independence that was drafted this summer at Seneca Falls.” At a dubious and somewhat resentful glance from Mother, Amy smiled ruefully and said, “Or perhaps it is just a very mischievous spirit, who regrets his lost opportunity in life to learn the piano from Leah.”

Calvin was very regretful that he had so distressed his foster mother, and I heard him whisper to Leah that he would dismantle his creation as soon as Mother had gone to bed. Thus, as soon as all the guests were gone, Leah led Mother from the parlor and started her up the stairs.

It was just then that the doorbell rang—once, twice, and a third time in quick succession. Thinking that one of our visitors had left an item behind, I scampered to the door. I heard Leah behind me on the stairs, trying to discourage Mother from going down to answer it. Opening the door, I found a young delivery boy on the stoop with a telegram in hand.

“Maggie!” My mother pulled free from Leah's grasp and came running down the stairs, nearly stumbling in her panic. “Is that a telegram? Who's dead? Oh, dear Lord, who is dead?”

“Mother!” I exclaimed with some irritation, slitting open the envelope with my index finger. “Just because we receive a telegram doesn't mean someone is dead!”

But in this case, it did.

I gasped out loud and put my hand against the wall for support. Mother snatched the message from me, and in a moment she and Leah both were reading it. My mother screamed, and my sister covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

David's little daughter Ella had been stricken with a high fever and had died that very evening while we were holding our spirit circle with the piano tolling its death knell.