Maggie
The death of David’s bright-eyed little girl devastated our family, and grief brought us together briefly, all our petty disputes forgotten. My poor brother was nearly destroyed. I was shocked by his appearance, for he seemed to have aged ten years in the span of two months.
The funeral service was held shortly after our arrival in Hydesville, and my poor little niece was buried in a small coffin handmade by her father and her grandfather, working side by side. Leah was our source of strength, as always. She almost single-handedly directed affairs, guiding our grief-stricken brother and his wife through the ceremony.
By contrast, Kate was nearly prostrate with hysteria. Immediately after the funeral, she took to a bed and refused to get up. Slipping away from the company of neighbors paying condolence calls, I went upstairs and perched myself on the bed beside her, taking her hand.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I whispered, “and you need to stop it.”
“I caused Ella’s death,” Kate’s lips formed the words, but there was scarcely any breath behind them.
“You know that is nonsense,” I said fiercely.
“I predicted it, then,” she replied in a firmer voice. “I’m the one who asked Calvin to make the piano toll that note.”
“I think you asked him to make it play,” I corrected. “I am sure you did not ask him to make it sound like a death knell, and you certainly didn’t ask that idiot woman to predict that someone in our family would die! It was a coincidence. Ella had been ill for two days before!”
“I asked Calvin to rig the piano two days ago,” Kate said gloomily.
“You did not. It was only one day ago!”
“I don’t want this power!” Kate’s tear-stained face turned toward me. “I don’t want the power to see death approaching! I want to comfort people, not foresee their grief!”
“You are forgetting,” I hissed. “You don’t actually have any power at all. You crack the joints in your toes to make the rapping, and you are very good at reading people’s faces. You are a fraud, just as I am.”
Despite my best efforts, Kate remained inconsolable and probably would not have left the bed at all had Leah not barged in that evening and taken her by the ear. Kate was forced to scramble up and onto her feet, lest she lose that particular piece of her anatomy.
“That’s enough wallowing from you, you self-centered chit!” Leah scolded. “David and Betsy aren’t lying in bed. They’re behaving with dignity, and I won’t have you overshadowing their grief. She wasn’t your child!”
I gasped. Kate’s health was delicate, and one did not just order her out of bed when she was taken by a spell. However, two red circles of shame appeared on Kate’s cheeks, and she scrambled to pull on her dress before Leah could lay hands on her again.
The emotional ordeal was not yet over for us, however. We had scarcely returned to Rochester before Mother began to make us uncomfortable with requests to contact Ella’s spirit in a circle. Kate dug her fingernails into my arm each time she asked, and when Mother was not within hearing, she would hiss, “I cannot do it! I will not do it!” However, Mother would not give up the idea, and truly, there was no reason for not doing for her what we did for strangers at a dollar a head. When she asked us in front of our regular group of sitters, Leah gave a resigned sigh and nodded to us girls. Kate cast her eyes down in shame, and I returned a wide-eyed gaze to Leah. What could we do to impersonate Ella, a child less than three years old? She could not spell out any message. What did Mother expect?
Leah had the matter well in hand, however. “Dear spirits!” she cried. “We are seeking the spirit of a small child—a girl very dear to us, who passed into your realm a week ago. Please, help us to locate Ella Fox, for her aunts and her grandmama wish dearly to speak to her!”
We waited in silence. Leah closed her eyes and swayed in her seat. “Ella, are you there? Knock for us, child. Your grandmama is waiting for you.”
And there came a small gentle knocking, as if the tiny hand of a child had rapped upon the center of the table.
“Ella!” my mother gasped tearfully. “Ella, darling, is it you?”
“Ella!” Leah said hastily. “Knock two times for yes. You can count to two, can’t you, dearest?”
Two tiny knocks were clearly heard in the room, and Mother raised her hands from their customary position on the table and clasped them to her face. “Ella, my darling! Are you in heaven?”
Two raps, tentative and childlike.
“Are you alone, Ella?” asked Leah. “You can knock one time for no, or two for yes.”
The spirit of Ella rapped one time, for no.
Leah nodded knowingly. “You are not alone. That is good, my darling. Who is with you—is it perhaps your great-aunt Catherine?”
Acting upon impulse, or perchance because I had grown accustomed to working from Leah’s hints, I caused there to be two very strong knocks upon the table.
Mother’s eyes lit up, glistening with tears. I rapped out the command for the alphabet board, feeling on sure ground. I did not remember this sister of my mother’s, who had died many years ago, but I knew of her from Leah’s stories, and it was easy to spell out a message that my mother would believe: I told you, Peggy, when you left John, that I would care for your children as my own. That is as true now as it was twenty-seven years ago.
My mother sobbed loudly, but they were cleansing tears, and Leah raised a hand to brush at her own wet cheeks, giving me a quick, grateful glance. We were all hurting from this unhappy loss, but somehow it was very reassuring to think of little Ella in the hands of the indomitable Aunt Catherine, who had taken my mother and her children into her home when they had nowhere else to go.
Adelaide Granger, who was present that evening, put her arms around my mother and pressed a handkerchief into her hands. “How very good it is,” she said, smiling through tears of her own, “that you, who have given so much comfort to others, can also reap the benefits of your daughters’ precious gift!”
***
As successful as we were in promoting our new family business, we were unable to convince everyone. Many people left our circles unsatisfied, especially those wanting to make a fortune with their stock speculations or seeking a way to outwit a rival in business or romance. Leah explained that the dead no longer understood the complexities of finance or love, having transcended to a realm of divine contemplation, but these seekers grumbled nonetheless when they received messages that spoke more to patience and virtue than to ambition and avarice.
Some sitters did more than grumble. Jealous women loosed their shrewish tongues to give us a piece of their minds, and a few of the men became angry and abusive, hurling epithets at our faces and calling us heathen witches and frauds. Persons of this temperament generally found themselves grasped firmly by an elbow and propelled swiftly to the front door at the hands of Calvin Brown, who, though mildly mannered, possessed substantial strength in his six-foot frame.
We also received a fair share of attention from the newspapers. The New York Tribune frankly called us humbugs, and the Rochester Courier and Enquirer doubted that real spirits would spend their time “thumping on walls and rapping on tables.” Some favorable press could be found in the Rochester Daily Democrat, which stated: “These young women will have to be pretty smart if they have deceived everybody.” The likelihood of such a phenomenon was apparently rated somewhat lower than the possibility of real communication with ghosts.
Still, Mr. Capron and the Posts were rather disappointed with the jeers of the press and the public at large. Leah, Kate, and I met with them late in October to discuss the suspicion and skepticism of the Rochester community.
“I am at a loss to know what we can do to further our cause,” Leah began with a note of fatalism in her voice. “The spirits have commanded us to make their communications more public.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Mr. Capron, tapping his fingers nervously upon his pipe, “when I publish my book, we will attract the attention of intellects more scientifically minded than the journalists of the local papers.”
“You know that we have the support of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Stanton,” Amy added. “I also understand that Frederick Douglass has expressed some interest in coming up to hear these raps for himself, and will most certainly publish his experience in his North Star paper.”
A few moments of silence followed as our friends considered other potential contacts or venues for advancing the idea of spiritualism. Kate and I contributed nothing to the conversation, for we were not expected to have any opinions, but we did cast sidelong glances at each other, waiting for the skillful maneuver that we knew must be coming.
“It does occur to me,” Leah finally said hesitantly, “a dear friend of mine suggested a few weeks ago that we appear in a public forum to proclaim the truth of spiritualism and prove it to the doubtful by demonstration. I was aghast at the suggestion, of course.”
“Wait a moment,” requested the soft-spoken Mr. Post, stroking his beard. “That is not an unreasonable suggestion. Perhaps we should hold a public lecture on the spiritual realm and the immortality of the soul. You could present your work, Eliab,” he added, nodding at the journalist. “It would be good advance publicity for your book.”
“And a source of income for the ladies,” Mr. Capron added virtuously. He drew on his pipe with a thoughtful expression.
Leah shook her head gently. “My dearest companions,” she said, “you are forgetting that we are modest and respectable women. I fear it would not be seemly for us to appear on a public lecture stage.”
“Mrs. Fish,” said Mr. Capron, “I will do the public speaking, and you need only be physically present in order to translate for the spirits. Your reputation will not be injured in any way.”
Under Mr. Capron’s kind prodding, Leah cast her eyes down in acquiescence. “If you feel it is a wise course, Mr. Capron, then I will, as ever, abide by your judgment. I only think that we should ask the spirits for guidance before making a final decision.”
The alphabet board appeared in my hands as if I had somehow known in advance it would be needed. Mr. Capron took it upon himself to ask the question, and the spirits rapped out their answer immediately: Hire Corinthian Hall.