The Spiritualist
Norris Van Arden read the letter of resignation on his desk and, in a fit of despair, crumbled it and tossed it in the wastebasket.
"Damn Horrocks! How dare he leave! I was the one who gave him his first job. If it weren't for me, he would probably be on the street corner selling the news instead of reporting it."
In all honesty, the owner and editor of the Eastland Chronicle did not blame Floyd Horrocks for accepting a higher-paying offer. He had a family to support: a wife, a two-year-old son and another baby on the way. Furthermore, his coverage of the sinking of the Titanic had made him a quasi-celebrity.
The reporter's exit, however, left Norris in a bind. The Chronicle was a small, local paper with a slowly dwindling circulation. Without a good journalist on staff, it would soon cease to exist. The editor could not sell papers that consisted of only editorials, classified ads, sports scores, obituaries, helpful hints from Doralee and a crossword puzzle. While he did write many of the articles himself, there were not enough hours in the day for him to cover world events, state and local news and feature stories.
"With what I can afford to pay one, where am I going to get another good reporter?"
It was his wife, Lucinda, who eventually gave him the answer.
"What man can afford to take care of a family on the salary I have to offer," he had groaned over dinner one night.
"Can't you offer more money?"
"I wish that I could, but the Chronicle isn't The Boston Globe or The New York Times."
"It seems to me you have only one alternative," the always-practical Lucinda declared.
"I'm not giving up," he insisted. "I'll keep the paper going until the bitter end."
"I wasn't about to suggest you cease publication. I was merely about to say that if you can't afford to hire a man, hire a woman instead."
"A woman?"
"It's a known fact that women's salaries are far less than men's-sorry to say. And it's not completely unheard of for them to become reporters. Look at Jane Grey Swisshelm, Margaret Fuller and Nellie Bly. If Horace Greeley and Joseph Pulitzer can hire women, why can't you? After all, we may not be allowed to vote, but we can write an article."
As usual, his wife presented a good argument.
"I have no qualms about hiring a woman," Norris admitted. "But where would I find one?"
"You own a newspaper, dear," Lucinda pointed out. "Put a help wanted ad in your classified section."
* * *
Norris sat at his desk across from Miss Perdita Garner, a twenty-five-year-old schoolteacher, one of three women who answered his ad. After having interviewed the other two, he found them lacking the necessary skills for the job.
"It says here you're a graduate of Salem Normal School," the editor noted, reading from the applicant's letter of recommendation.
"Yes. I graduated at the top of my class. Once I left school, I took a teaching position in Gloucester."
"Why do you suddenly want to quit your job and work for the Chronicle?"
"I've dreamed of becoming a reporter since I read Nellie Bly's exposé on the conditions at Blackwell's Island."
"You do realize that if I were to hire you, I wouldn't be sending you to a lunatic asylum?"
"Of course. But I'm sure there will be other challenging assignments for me to undertake."
"You're a single woman of marriageable age," Van Arden contended. "It's possible you'll want to marry and start a family before long. If so, I'd be left without a reporter—again."
"That's not going to happen. Moreover, how do I know you won't let me go if some man shows up looking for a job? Then I'd be the one out of work."
"True. I guess neither of us has a guarantee that this situation will last."
Norris put Perdita's application and letter of recommendation into the wire basket on his desk, leaned back on his chair and pursed his lips. He was not one to make rash decisions without pondering over all his options. In this case, his choices were limited.
He looked across his desk into the eyes of the teacher who anxiously awaited his response.
"When can you start, Miss Garner?"
* * *
Perdita had been working for the Eastland Chronicle for over a year when she learned that Madame Zerelda, a renowned spiritualist, was scheduled to appear at the Salem Theatre on Essex Street. The female reporter considered herself a modern, intelligent woman. As such, she thought fortunetellers, psychics and mediums were no more than con artists.
"How can anyone in their right mind believe this woman can communicate with the dead?" she asked her editor as she sat in his office, awaiting her next assignment.
"I don't know," Norris answered. "She does have a large following, so I assume a great many people think she's on the up and up."
"People once thought the world was flat. That didn't make it so. Honestly! The government ought to do something about the uneducated masses!"
"Arthur Conan Doyle studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh before he became one of the world's foremost writers, yet he fervently believes in spiritualism," Norris argued.
"I suppose one can be both educated and gullible."
"Perhaps," the editor muttered, his mind assessing the likelihood that an article on the subject would interest his readers. Deciding it would, he added, "I want you to attend Madame Zerelda's demonstration."
"Don't tell me you believe in such nonsense!" his reporter exclaimed. "If you do, don't for one moment think you can convert me!"
"Don't be silly. I want you to go as a reporter, not as a potential believer."
"Oh! You want me to write an exposé, clearly divulging that this woman is a fake! Excellent idea!"
"Now, now! Keep your Nellie Bly ambitions in check," Van Arden cautioned. "This isn't an assignment for an investigative reporter. I just want you to report what happens at this demonstration."
"You mean write a heart-wrenching description of a lonely old widow wanting to speak with her long-lost husband?" Perdita asked, pouting with disappointment.
"Exactly."
A week later, the Chronicle's first female journalist presented her ticket at the door and gained admission into Salem Theatre. Wanting to closely observe the spiritualist in action and hopefully detect signs of fraudulent behavior, she found a seat in the front row, just a few feet from the stage.
There was a twenty-minute wait before the house lights dimmed and the curtain opened. All conversation in the audience came to an abrupt end when Madame Zerelda walked out and sat in the chair that was bathed with soft light from above. Perdita made a mental note of the woman's appearance so that she could describe her in the article. Her hair, piled on top of her head in a neat bun, was snowy white. However, her skin was unlined, like that of a young woman. Aside from the hair color, there was nothing to suggest that Madame Zerelda was elderly.
Soon, a man introduced as Boris Mikhaylov joined the spiritualist on stage. He welcomed the members of the audience and briefly summarized what they could expect to witness during the evening's presentation.
"Let us begin," he stated and stepped into the shadows, leaving the spiritualist alone in the spotlight.
"Millicent," Madame Zerelda intoned as if she were in a trance. "Someone named Seymour wants to speak to you."
A woman sitting three rows behind Perdita jumped up and screamed.
"Please come up to the stage," Boris instructed, reappearing from the shadows to help her up the steps.
"Seymour has a message for you," the spiritualist continued. "He says he doesn't object to your getting remarried. He wants you to be happy."
Several emotions played upon Millicent's face: surprise that her late husband had contacted her through a psychic medium, astonishment that Madame Zerelda really could communicate with the dead and lastly joy that she could accept the recent proposal she had received.
"Thank you, Seymour," she responded gratefully. "And thank you, Madame Zerelda."
No sooner had Millicent left the stage and returned to her seat than the spiritualist called out another name.
"Harrison, Charlotte is here with us tonight."
Boris then called Harrison to the stage.
"Yes, Aunt Charlotte?" the man said, amazed that his mother's sister, a woman who died when he was an infant, would have a message for him. "What is it you want to tell me?"
What the dead woman had to say horrified everyone in the audience. If the spiritualist was to be believed, Charlotte was a single woman who had been seduced by a married man. After giving birth, her sister, Harrison's mother, a woman who was unable to conceive a child of her own, smothered her with a pillow and claimed Harrison was her own son.
How could Madame Zerelda tell that poor man such a horrible lie? the journalist wondered.
After Harrison returned to his seat and the theater became quiet, the spiritualist shared messages from beyond with three more people in the audience. Perdita was composing an article in her head when the last of the three sat down. Thus, she did not at first hear her own name called out.
"Is there a Perdita with us tonight?" Boris repeated the question when no one stood up.
"Me?" the journalist asked in disbelief. "You want me to come to the stage?"
"Edwina has something to say to you," Madame Zerelda clarified.
Perdita rose from her seat, but never made it to the stage. She fainted before reaching the staircase.
* * *
"What happened?" Norris grilled his reporter the following morning. "As long as you've worked for the Chronicle, you never missed a deadline."
"Sorry, boss," Perdita apologized, "I did go to Salem, but I fell ... ill partway through Madame Zerelda's performance."
"It was nothing serious, I hope."
"No. I became lightheaded and passed out."
"I'm not surprised. You don't eat right, and I'm guessing you don't get enough sleep either. You've got to take better care of yourself."
"I will."
"Good." The editor referred to his calendar and told her, "Now, for your next assignment ...."
"Wait. I haven't written my piece on Madame Zerelda yet," the journalist objected.
"True, but how can you write an article on her performance when you only saw part of it?"
"I want to interview her instead."
"Why?"
"I think our readers might be interested in learning more about her. Please. It's not as though I'm working on anything earthshattering at the moment."
"All right," the editor reluctantly agreed. "If the article is any good, we can run it in the Monday edition."
Obtaining Norris Van Arden's approval proved to be much easier than getting consent from Madame Zerelda. At first, the spiritualist would not even answer her phone calls. Not one to be easily put off, Perdita went to Madame Zerelda's hotel and knocked on the door to her suite. It was Boris Mikhaylov who answered.
"I'm sorry, but Madame does not entertain guests," he informed her.
When her attempts at flattery and bribery both failed to persuade him, she resorted to threats.
"My editor insists I write an article," she lied. "If your employer refuses to see me, I'll have no choice but to invent a story. And I promise you, Madame Zerelda will not like what I write. Imagine all those people reading in the Chronicle that the esteemed spiritualist is nothing more than a swindler who bilks mourners out of their hard-earned savings."
Boris stood firm.
"I repeat, Madame does not entertain ...."
The bedroom door opened, and the spiritualist came into the sitting room.
"I understand you want to interview me. Won't you sit down?" Then she turned and addressed Boris. "Please bring us some tea."
Perdita sat down on the sofa, and the spiritualist settled in a wing chair beside the fireplace.
"I saw Tuesday night at the Salem Theatre," the journalist began.
"I'm afraid I don't take notice of people in the audience."
"You claimed to have a message for me from Edwina."
"Did I? I never recall what I say when I'm communing with the spirits. What was the message?"
"That's what I'd like to know. You see, I fainted before I was brought on stage."
"I wish I could help you, my dear, but I can't."
"Is it because you're nothing but a fake?" Perdita boldly accused her.
"You're outspoken, aren't you?" Madame Zerelda laughed. "If you want to know what the message was, I suggest you attend my séance tonight. With any luck, this Edwina will try to contact you again. Now, can we get on with this interview? I need to rest before this evening's gathering."
* * *
Perdita wrote her article and handed it to her editor more than an hour before the deadline. Norris was surprised since his reporter usually rushed to finish on time.
"What's the occasion?" he teased. "Do you have a date with a handsome young man tonight?"
"No. I have ... plans."
"Oh? What sort of plans?"
"If you must know, I'm going to attend Madame Zerelda's séance."
The editor frowned.
"She's made a convert of you, has she?"
"Not at all. I still think spiritualism is bogus, but I've yet to find proof."
That evening, Perdita returned to Madame Zerelda's hotel suite. In addition to the spiritualist and Boris Mikhaylov, three women and two men were in attendance.
"Ah, Miss Garner. I'm glad you could make it tonight," Boris greeted her. "If everyone will take a seat, we can begin."
The attendees paid the required fee, the electric lights were dimmed and a lit candle was placed in the center of the table. The participants were directed to hold hands and remain quiet while Madame Zerelda attempted to make contact with her spirit guide. Several minutes passed before the spiritualist muttered a name. Because she spoke barely above a whisper, no one understood what she said.
"Lyndon," she repeated, louder this time. "Are you there?"
"Yes, I'm here," the man named Lyndon eagerly replied. "Is that you, darling?"
"Yes, my love. It's me, Rosamond. I've got a message for you."
"What is it, darling?"
"Your father is here with your mother. He's been dead these past ten years."
A look of amazement transformed Lyndon's face.
"But how did he die?"
"He was fishing, and his boat sank. That's why no one found his body."
"All this time ...," the distraught son sobbed. "I had no idea."
Having delivered her message, Rosamond returned to the shadowy realm from which she came. The next spirit to seek an audience was a young child who wanted to ease his mother's pain by assuring her that he had found peace in heaven.
Perdita was not impressed by these alleged encounters with the dearly departed. Madame Zerelda might have had advance knowledge that Lyndon's father had been missing for a decade or that the poor mother was grieving over a deceased child.
I suppose she ought to be commended for giving comfort to these people, the journalist mused. But she's still guilty of fraud since she's accepting money under false pretenses.
Three more supposed spiritual manifestations occurred, none of which proved or refuted the veracity of Madame Zerelda's mystical gift.
This was a waste of time and money. Why did I come here? I could have been home ....
"Edwina is here with us, and she has a message for someone in this room."
The journalist's heart raced. Edwina was not a common name. Nevertheless, that didn't mean Madame Zerelda had made contact with her sister, who had died from consumption when she was only seven years old.
"I have a confession to make," the spiritualist announced in a voice much younger than the one she normally spoke with.
Can that be my sister's voice? It's been years since she died. I don't really remember what she sounded like.
"I took the necklace."
There was a sharp intake of breath, and the journalist's complexion became nearly as white as the damask cloth on the séance table. When she was five years old, two years younger than her sister, their mother's pearl necklace went missing. Edwina swore she had not seen it, so suspicion fell on the younger sibling. Although their parents had never openly accused her of the theft, Perdita knew they both thought she was guilty. From that day on, things were never the same. Both Dr. and Mrs. Garner never trusted their younger daughter again and rarely exhibited any affection for her.
"What did you do with it?" she demanded to know, albeit she was not yet convinced the person she spoke to was Edwina.
"I was playing dress-up and borrowed it from Mother's jewelry box. I didn't mean to keep it. But when I was wearing it, the string broke, and the pearls were scattered on the floor. I was afraid I'd be punished, so I swept up the pearls and buried them beneath the lilac bush in the backyard."
Perdita's mind was bombarded with questions to which she had no answers.
Is this true? Is it really Edwina? It must be! How could Madame Zerelda know about the pearl necklace or the lilac bush? If it is true, are the pearls still buried there?
* * *
"Well?" Norris asked, looking expectantly at his reporter. "Where's your article?"
"What article?" Perdita answered, confused by the question.
"The one about the séance. You did go last night, didn't you?"
"Yes, but I never had any intention of writing about what happened there."
"I think it would be an excellent follow-up piece to the interview you conducted with Madame Zerelda. Surely, by now, you must have gotten proof that she's a fake."
"I'm not sure that she is," the reporter uttered.
"All right," Norris sighed. "If you're not going to write about the séance, why don't you go see Mrs. Haverman? She's going to host this year's charity ball. Ask her the usual questions and submit your article by five o'clock."
Perdita promptly picked up her purse and left the Chronicle's office. She was about to hail a taxi to take her to Mrs. Haverman's stately home when she saw a lilac bush, in full bloom, in the yard of the house across the street. Recalling the brief conversation she had the previous evening with what might have been her sister's spirit, she had the uncontrollable urge to learn the truth about the pearl necklace.
"Taxi!" she shouted, raising her hand to an approaching 1915 Stanley Steamer.
"Where to, Miss?" the driver inquired.
"Dr. Garner's home on Hamilton Drive."
After paying for the taxi, Perdita stood in front of the Victorian home where she grew up. She wondered whether her parents were home but made no attempt to find out. Rather than walk up to the front door, she cut across the grass and entered the backyard. She smelled the fragrant scent of lilacs before she saw the purple blossoms.
It's still there. It hasn't been dug up.
The reporter stared at the bush for several minutes, unsure what to do next.
I wish I had a trowel or a shovel.
She opened her purse and rifled through its contents. The fountain pen looked promising. Kneeling on her knees, she began to jab at the ground. After a few minutes, the pen snapped in half. Not wanting to dirty her hands, she removed her shoe and used the heel to gouge out the dirt. Intent on her mission, she lost track of time. It was already after the noon hour when she discovered the first pearl.
"It's true!" she cried. "I did receive a message from Edwina!"
Tossing the shoe aside, Perdita thrust both hands into the soil and started to dig. Finding another pearl, she increased her efforts. It was nearly three in the afternoon when she unearthed what appeared to be a bone. Startled, she screamed, fearing she had located the remains of one of her former pets.
"Who's there?" someone called from the house.
Despite not having spoken to her parents in more than five years, she recognized her mother's voice. Perdita's first instinct was to run, but her desire to find the remaining pearls compelled her to remain.
The back door opened and closed, and soon Alma Garner confronted her daughter.
"What are you doing here?" The woman's eyes were drawn to the lilac bush, and her face paled with horror. "What have you done?"
"I went to a séance," Perdita explained. "I received a message from Edwina. She confessed that she was the one who took your necklace. All these years, you and Father have blamed me, and it was her all along."
When Alma turned to face her daughter, there were tears in her eyes.
"We've always known you didn't take my pearls."
"Then ... why? I ... I don't understand," the reporter stammered. "Why did you treat me like I was guilty? Why didn't you trust me anymore? Why did you stop loving me?"
"Are you telling me you've forgotten what happened that day?" Alma sobbed. "What you did!"
Perdita opened her mouth to answer but closed it again as memories began to fight their way through the boundaries of her subconscious mind. Like one of Mr. Edison's moving pictures, images from her past were projected into her brain.
Edwina was wearing a ball gown, satin slippers and kid gloves that had belonged to their mother when she was much younger. As her envious sister watched, the seven-year-old tied her long hair up with ribbons. Then she reached into their mother's jewelry box and removed the pearls.
"There!" Edwina exclaimed, fastening the clasp. "Now, I look just like Mother."
"Take off that necklace," Perdita demanded. "It doesn't belong to you."
"I won't hurt it. I just want to see how it looks on me."
"I said take it off!"
"No. I want to wear it. Besides, I'm older than you are. I'm sure Mother will leave it to me when she dies."
The possibility of Edwina inheriting the pearls enraged the younger sibling.
"I told you to take it off!" the girl screamed and reached for the necklace.
In the melee that followed, Perdita pushed her sister to the ground. The younger sibling pommeled the older one, who desperately tried to protect herself.
"I ... want ... that ... necklace," the five-year-old screamed, scratching Edwina's throat with her nails.
Once she got her hands around the string of pearls, she pulled with all her might, lifting her sister's head off the floor in the process.
SNAP!
The string broke, and the pearls scattered.
THUMP!
Edwina's head smacked back down on the hardwood floor with a force strong enough to fracture her skull.
"I remember now," the journalist softly murmured.
"You may not have intended to do so, but you killed your sister," Alma admonished. "Your father and I were afraid of what might happen to you should the police find out, so we chose to lie to protect you. We buried Edwina under the lilac bush that she loved so much and told everyone that she had consumption and had been sent away to a sanitarium to recover. Later, he spread the word that she died of the disease."
"And all these years, you knew what I had done. That's why you and Father treated me the way you did. You knew I was a killer."
"I tried to keep on loving you," Alma sobbed, "but I couldn't. I could never forget what happened to your sister. Even now, when I look at you, my blood runs cold."
"You claim you and Father have been telling lies all these years to protect me. But you're wrong. You lied only to avoid a scandal that might tarnish your reputation."
Alma, a doctor's wife, well-respected in her community, wiped the tears from her eyes but remained silent. There was no denying the truth of her daughter's allegations.
"Don't worry, Mother. I won't make you endure my presence any longer," Perdita retorted, holding her head high. "I've got to go. I've got a deadline to meet."
The journalist walked to the curb to hail a taxi. When she saw one coming down the road, she raised her hand to flag it down. At that moment, she saw Madame Zerelda emerge from the apothecary shop on the corner of Hamilton Drive.
"I must apologize to Edwina," she mumbled to herself. "I never meant to kill her. I was only five years old. I didn't know what I was doing."
Eager to speak to the spiritualist before she disappeared in the crowd, the distraught girl ran out into the road. The taxi driver applied his brakes, but could not stop in time. As Perdita Garner lay in the road, having been run over by the Stanley Steamer, the soil-covered pearls spilled out of her hand.
Across the street, Madame Zerelda joined the spectators who were craning their necks to get a good look at the accident victim. When she saw the pearls lying in the street, a sad smile came to her lips.
"All that heartbreak and tragedy over a necklace! What a shame!"
Salem likes to brag that he's a psychic medium, but he's actually an extra-large!
