Page 33 of The Orphan of Cemetery Hill
Pulling her bonnet low over her face and wishing she’d worn a veil, Tabby allowed Larson to admit her to the large drawing room. The drapes had been drawn, and the opulent room was dim and stuffy. Mrs. Bishop was large and resplendent in the billowing black taffeta of her widow’s weeds as she conferred in low tones with a group of other ladies.
Tabby easily blended into the small gathering of women in somber colors and veils, who no doubt hoped that the famed medium would have a message for them from their loved ones.
How had her aunt carried it off? She didn’t have a stitch of clairvoyance, and Tabby doubted that she had developed any in the past ten years, yet somehow she had managed to become a notable medium.
A maidservant moved about the room with a silver tray, loaded with dainty cakes and finger sandwiches. Putting aside her tea and standing up, Mrs. Bishop cleared her throat. “Ladies, we will be beginning shortly. If you would all be so good as to take a seat.” She gestured to three rows of chairs facing a circular table draped in a long cloth.
Excited murmurs rippled through the group as ladies in voluminous layers of petticoats swept over to the chairs and lowered themselves. How many of them were here not because they wanted to contact a loved one, but merely for the morbid entertainment of the spectacle?
Taking a seat in the back, Tabby breathed slowly and evenly as the lamps were lowered. The room took on a hazy glow, the building anticipation of the women making the air thick and expectant.
A door off to the side opened, and a petite woman in all black glided in. The lady next to Tabby leaned over to her and whispered, “She’s so small! I had imagined she would be tall and slender. I have never seen her in person, but my brother saw her do a demonstration and said that it put to rest any doubts he had about the existence of an afterlife.”
Tabby couldn’t respond; she was too transfixed on the diminutive form of her aunt, seating herself at the table. Was this the same woman who had instilled such bone-deep terror in Tabby as a child? Had she always been so small? Her uncle was nowhere to be seen, but he would probably be off to the side somewhere, orchestrating whatever tricks they would have to use.
The woman beside her was perched on the edge of her seat as Mrs. Bellefonte began. “To make this a welcoming place for spirits, I must have absolute quiet.” She made a show of arranging herself on her seat and holding her hands out, palms up.
A preternatural calm fell over the drawing room, and it was so still and quiet that Tabby could hear the rise and fall of a dozen taffeta bodices around her.
Then, all of a sudden, Mrs. Bellefonte let out an eldritch groan and swayed back in her seat. “There is a spirit near,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
The women gave little cries and fanned themselves with their black lace fans. Even though Tabby knew that it was all a sham, she couldn’t help the chill that ran down her spine.
“It’s a male spirit...a grown man.” Her aunt squinted into the air, as if he was standing right before her. “He has a mustache and a very distinguished air about him.”
“My Henry!” A woman shot out of her chair. “Oh, but it must be my Henry.”
Mrs. Bellefonte nodded solemnly. “Yes, he says his name is Henry, and that he is here to speak with his wife.”
The woman’s black veil quivered as she spoke. “Tell him that I am sorry, that my...transgression...meant nothing. He was the only one that I ever truly loved.”
“He says that he forgives you, that he knows that his illness was difficult for you in the last months. He looks forward to having you at his side in the kingdom of heaven someday.”
With a little gasp, the woman slumped back into her chair, her friends swarming around her like butterflies to a black-petaled flower, as they administered salts and fanned at her with lace handkerchiefs.
More husbands were contacted, as well as mothers, fathers, children. Mrs. Bellefonte had a neat little message for nearly everyone before she finally came to Mrs. Bishop.
Tabby held her breath, waiting for her aunt to claim that she had reached the late Mr. Bishop. But to her horror it was not him whom she claimed to find.
“I see a young man, quite handsome. Light hair and brown eyes.”
Mrs. Bishop let out a strangled gasp. “My...my Caleb,” she choked out in between labored sobs. “He’s dead?”
Frantically, Tabby opened her mind. If there were truly spirits here as her aunt claimed, then she would find them.Please no please no, she chanted to herself as she let the ether envelope her like a cloud bank. But no spirits came, Caleb or otherwise.
Her aunt was a fraud, and thank God for that. There was a daguerreotype of Caleb on one of the tables in the parlor that her aunt had probably seen and used to describe him.
She might have been a fraud, but she was convincing. She knew when to wait for her client to offer more details before continuing, and when to gamble and offer a snippet of information. It was clear that she had done some research on Mrs. Bishop before accepting her invitation to hold a séance. When she claimed that Caleb had died running afoul of scofflaws, Mrs. Bishop gave another cry. It broke Tabby’s heart to see Mrs. Bishop reduced to tears, believing that her only son was truly dead.
“He’s gone,” Mrs. Bellefonte said quietly, and a pregnant hush fell back over the room. “I believe all the spirits have left us today and—”
Tabby’s cheeks had grown hot, and every little sound in the room was amplified. Before she knew what she was doing, she shot up and raised her hand. “My aunt,” she said in a choked voice. “I lost my dear aunt when I was but a child. Please, you must find her for me.”
There was a moment of hesitation from Mrs. Bellefonte, surprised as she was by the passionate outburst. But then she was nodding and gesturing for Tabby to come to the front of the room. “Come here, young lady. I will need to join hands with you to reestablish a connection and create a conduit by which the spirits may speak through me.”
Swallowing, Tabby slowly walked to the table and sat across from her aunt. With her bonnet still pulled low on her face, she placed her hands in the older woman’s. She hadn’t known what she was going to do when she’d raised her hand, but now a plan formed rapidly in her mind. For all the years that the threat of her aunt had hung over Tabby like a specter, now that she was finally in front of her, Tabby felt only determination. In the last twelve years, Tabby had grown callous, yes, but also strong. She had survived the streets of Boston as a child. She had escaped Mr. Whitby. The small woman in front of her held no power over her anymore.
Her aunt began humming, a low, tremulous sound that would have been laughable if not for the gravity of the situation. Then her hands went stiff and she broke off in her humming. “A spirit has shown itself to me.”
