The Gilded Age Part 6

He looks at her, all fraudulent innocence and cunning and genuine desperation aging his youthful face into an odd sort of mask. As if a wholly different person stands before her for a moment.

What is happening? Something strange! Jessie's breath catches in her throat. Fireworks pop and crackle overhead, and she starts, her heart fluttering.

Then a horse clatters on the cobblestones outside, and the spell is broken, and poor Mr. Watkins looks like nothing so much as sick, lost kid.

Through the window, Jessie spies Madame De Ca.s.sin. What a fine lady she is, too. Jessie smiles as the dashing spiritualist leaps off her black stallion, ties him to the hitching post, and stomps up the stairs. She bursts into the foyer without ringing the bell, splendid in her billowing black cape, black riding habit, and tall black boots. She always smells of horses, leather, and lavender oil. Madame De Ca.s.sin surveys Mr. Watkins with a piercing glance and, without hesitation, says, "Well, give him a room, Miss Malone, but he'll want to watch his step. I'll wager you're born under the sign of Aries, sir, am I correct?"

Jessie fairly bursts with joy. Madame De Ca.s.sin is the most respected, most sought-after expert in matters of the occult in this burg. Sure and the spiritualist has never laid eyes on Mr. Watkins before, yet she offers her opinion of him in less than a trice.

"You see?" Jessie says. "Madame De Ca.s.sin knows everything!"

"Aries, then, sir?" says Madame De Ca.s.sin. "The headstrong ram?"

"I haven't the slightest notion, madame," Mr. Watkins says and lights another smoke in spite of Jessie's admonition. Mr. Heald pats perspiration off his forehead and grins tightly. The spiritualist has laid eyes on Mr. Heald before.

"Well, what I do know is this, my dear," Madame De Ca.s.sin says to Jessie, tossing her riding whip on the side table, together with her black riding hat with its jet beads and black plumes. She flexes her hands, which she always keeps gloved in the finest black kid, and imperiously surveys them all. "I do know it's a fine time to call upon the sweet spirits."

"Mariah! Li'l Lucy!" Jessie calls. "Get the sitting room ready."

Madame De Ca.s.sin boldly stares at Mr. Watkins. "Are you a believer sir?"

"A believer in what?" Mr. Watkins stares back, bold as you please.

"In communication with dead." To Mr. Heald, "How about you, sir? Have you ever spoken with the sweet spirits? Indeed, have you ever spoken truthfully with your wife?"

But Jessie is too excited to pay much attention to Mr. Heald's scarlet face and sputtering breath. "Sure and we have enough people to sit for a seance, do we not, Madame de Ca.s.sin, if we include the gentlemen and Li'l Lucy? Have you ever sat at seance, Mr. Watkins?" she says, taking his arm. "Mariah! Bring us the sherry."

Jessie's sitting room is a small inner chamber with no windows, one door, and one low-burning bra.s.s gaslamp left unpolished so that a dark green patina has mottled the metal. The walls are heavily draped in black velvet. Even on this sunny day, the sitting room broods untouched by any natural light. A large round wooden table stands at the chamber's center, surrounded by eight plain wooden chairs. A single bra.s.s candlestick holding a squat black candle thick with wax drippings juts up from the table's center.

Li'l Lucy busily rearranges five of the chairs around the table, sc.r.a.ping three chairs into a corner of the room. Mariah lights the black candle, holds the match to incense burners slung on bra.s.s chains mounted on the wall among the folds of black velvet. The room is heavy with the scent of lavender oil and incense and candlewax.

Yes! Just the way Jessie likes it.

Next Mariah sets out a crystal decanter filled with sherry and five heavy crystal tumblers. She scowls with disapproval, her black eyes flickering. She turns down the gaslamp, makes the sign of the Cross over her breast, and flees, shutting the door behind her.

Madame De Ca.s.sin generously pours out sherry in each of the tumblers. "To the sweet spirits," she solemnly toasts Jessie and seats herself, swirling her black cape over her shoulder.

"Well, now. Didn't know they nipped a tick before the mumbo jumbo," Mr. Heald mutters to Mr. Watkins with a wink. "No wonder the wife goes in for it."

"To the sweet spirits," says Mr. Watkins enthusiastically, tossing sherry down his throat and reaching for the decanter.

Li'l Lucy noisily slurps, burps, and giggles.

"To the sweet spirits," Jessie says pa.s.sionately, ignoring the others' disrespect. They shall see! Madame De Ca.s.sin insists on the ritual imbibing of spirits-spirits for the spirits, you see-which opens our mortal door to the Summerland. The great spiritualist supplies this particular sherry to Jessie just for this sacred purpose, and this purpose only. The sherry establishes a certain sympathy with the madame's spirit guide, Chief Silver Thorne, who during his life on earth much favored the beverage. Jessie happily gulps the smoky-tasting liquor, which warms her just as the medicinal benefit of Scotch Oats Essence is beginning to fade. This particular sherry makes her head spin unlike any other. "I want to speak with Rachael, Madame De Ca.s.sin."

"Of course you do," the spiritualist says. She sets her tumbler down, staring severely at the other sitters. Even Mr. Watkins gets the hint, reluctantly relinquishing his tumbler. Madame De Ca.s.sin makes long, sweeping motions with her gloved hands, clearing the magnetic energy over the table. Her handsome face goes slack in the candlelight. Her eyelids flutter and her pupils roll up, showing the whites beneath them.

"You will all join hands," she whispers.

Jessie takes the spiritualist's left hand and Mr. Watkins's right hand. Her heart begins to pound and her head whirls in the perfumed darkness.

Mr. Heald sits next to the spiritualist on the right, Li'l Lucy blinks nervously between the two gentlemen. They all join hands, and the circle is complete.

Madame De Ca.s.sin wastes no time going into a trance. She begins to moan and sway, keening louder and louder till she leans over the black candle and, with a chilling screech, blows out the flame.

"Chief Silver Thorne?" she calls out. "My dear friend in the Summerland, my n.o.ble Cherokee chief, where are you-oo-oo?"

A shudder rocks the spiritualist, and Jessie trembles with fear and excitement. She grips the spiritualist's gloved hand. Lordy, her hand is so firm from equestrian activities! Jessie cannot see a thing in the darkness. A ghostly caress tickles the back of her neck. "Sure and I feel the chief's hand," Jessie whispers, dread rushing deliciously up her spine. Shapes blacker than the darkness reel and totter before her blinded eyes.

From the other side of the table, Mr. Heald makes little yelping noises.

Madame De Ca.s.sin lets loose a bloodcurdling yell, and a horn blows softly just above Jessie's ear. Then a bizarre masculine voice spills out in the vicinity of the spiritualist's mouth. "I am here, Rebecca." The voice has a strange accent Jessie can't quite place.

The spiritualist's cloak rustles as she sways and lurches. "Forgive me, Chief Silver Thorne, but we have strangers with us today."

"Yes, I sense their presence," Chief Silver Thorne answers irritably. "Two gentlemen who do not support woman suffrage."

Mr. Heald sputters and says, "Well, I'll be a fiddler's b.i.t.c.h."

Mr. Watkins says, "I certainly do not. Women suffer enough. Ha, ha."

Ghostly caresses patter on the back of Jessie's head. "Please, Chief Silver Thorne," she pleads. "Let us not discuss woman suffrage again. You know I don't approve of giving women the vote or a role in politics. It ain't ladylike."

"Yes, my dear chief," Madame De Ca.s.sin implores. "As always, Miss Malone wishes to speak with her beloved Rachael."

"Very well, Miss Malone," Chief Silver Thorne says. "I will see if I can find Rachael in the Summerland if you will promise to treat Li'l Lucy with continuing kindness. She has been ill, Miss Malone, has she not?"

Jessie clucks her tongue. Chief Silver Thorne is forever going on about equality for women, rights for Negroes and for the heathen Chinese, and showing kindness toward the girls she's got under contract. Why should a Cherokee chief who lived two hundred years ago give two hoots about such things? Sure and she wishes Madame De Ca.s.sin would find another spirit guide who ain't so d.a.m.n self-righteous.

"Has she not been ill?" Chief Silver Thorne repeats.

"It's quite true, sir, I still ache," Li'l Lucy whispers.

"Yes, yes, she's been ill," Jessie says, vexed. Li'l Lucy fell ill because she failed to follow Jessie's instructions on how avoid getting in the family way. Serves Jessie right, including the pathetic girl at a seance on her most magnetic day.

"You will promise me, won't you, Miss Malone?" Chief Silver Thorne persists.

"Oh, fine and dandy. I promise." She's still sending Li'l Lucy back to the Parisian Mansion. But perhaps the Morton Alley cribs can wait.

"Good. Now, then. Rachael?" Chief Silver Thorne begins to call out in a cloudy voice that seems to come from the ceiling. "Rachael?"

"Rachael?" Madame De Ca.s.sin says briskly in-between the spirit guide's masculine summonings. "Rachael, answer us please."

The high, clear voice of a young girl emanates from the ceiling. "Jessie? Oh my dear one, is that you, Jessie?"

Grief spills through Jessie like it always does. The sharp, deep yearning for her Rachael, for Lily Lake lost so long ago. Jessie grips the hands of Mr. Watkins and the spiritualist even tighter as tears, real tears, spill down her face. "Rachael? My beloved Rachael?"

"I'm here, Jessie."

"Are you all right?"

"Of course, I am, Jessie. What about you? How are you, my darlin'?"

"I'm fine, Rachael."

"Have you gone to see a doctor about that pain in your liver we talked about last time?"

"No. I. . . .I've been busy. You know how it is."

"You really must go, Jessie. You must see a doctor. I feel something is wrong."

"Pah, never mind about me. Rachael, I saw a lady today. She was attacked by them hatchet men in the park. I can't get her out of my mind! Can you tell me if she's all right?"

Rachael hesitates, and Madame De Ca.s.sin says in her own voice, "Rachael has been picnicking in the Summerland today, Jessie. She's enjoying her own Fourth of July, and she may not know-"

Now Rachael's voice interjects, "Someone else has come. Someone else is here with me. Someone who has crossed over in recent days. A lady. A pale, pretty lady with such a sad face. And such deep sea eyes, swimming with tears, always swimming with tears."

Mr. Watkins inhales sharply as if someone has punched him in the gut. He whispers, "By G.o.d, is that you, Mama?"

"Yes, she is your mama," Rachael whispers. "Mama is telling me something. Mama says, 'Beware, my son. Beware, you are in danger.'"

"Yes, it's true! A dip pinched my boodle book on the ferry from Oakland."

"'No, the pickpocket is not the danger she means,'" Rachael whispers. "Mama says. . . ."

Suddenly a freezing wind whips through the sitting room, and an eerie sound whistles. Jessie's teeth begin to chatter, a sour taste pools on her tongue. The stench of rotgut wafts over the table, and a snippet of honky-tonk music blares in her ear. The darkness turns blindingly white, stark white for an eye blink, then flips into darkness again.

"Jar me, what is it?' Jessie cries and turns toward Madame De Ca.s.sin. "What's happening?"

The spiritualist s.n.a.t.c.hes her hand away, leaps to her feet. Jessie hears something heavy clatter on the floor. Madame De Ca.s.sin stoops, whirls, and sprints across the room. Light blooms as she stands at the gaslamp, turning up the flame. Her face is drained pale, her brown eyes wide. Jessie has never seen the spiritualist look frightened before.

"Is it really true? Mama was here?" Mr. Watkins says, looking around. "Mama?"

Li'l Lucy's teeth chatter. Mr. Heald looks pinched.

"My mother pa.s.sed away a month ago," Mr. Watkins says. "And that strange presence, did you feel it? On the Overland, I felt a strange presence, too. A strange presence, I tell you, and a vision that changed the whole world just for a moment. She said, 'Beware, my son.'" He seizes Jessie's arm. "What does she mean?"

"Sure and what does it mean?" Jessie demands, turning to Madame De Ca.s.sin.

"Let's go downstairs," the spiritualist says. "All of you, come on." She herds them out of the sitting room. The others go as Jessie turns off the gaslamp, crushes the smoking piles of incense in their burners, plunks a silver snuffer over the smoking candle. The spiritualist takes Jessie by the arm and resolutely closes the door to the sitting room behind them. "Let no one in there. Do not go in yourself."

"What was it?" Jessie whispers as they climb down the stairs. "You must tell me, Madame De Ca.s.sin."

"My dear Miss Malone," Madame De Ca.s.sin says, "strange times are a-coming."

Madame De Ca.s.sin a.s.sures Jessie that evil spirits, or whatever the strange presence was, departed from the sitting room when she turned up the gaslight. But the unflappable spiritualist looks unsettled herself. Jessie pays her the usual fee, picking out a few gold coins from those Mr. Heald paid her, and begs her to return and ensure that the sitting room hasn't become haunted. The spiritualist readily agrees, consulting her little black leather appointment book, and schedules another visit.

"Madame De Ca.s.sin, you must advise me what to do." Mr. Watkins confronts her as the spiritualist pins on her riding hat.

"Beware," she says. "Beware of others. Beware mostly of yourself, sir." With that, she stomps out the door.

Mr. Heald hurries out the door, too, without another word about going upstairs. Sure and it's just as well. Jessie is hardly in the mood for the biz. But an anxiety grates at her. Truth be told, she must admit that Mr. Heald is a nice old sport, a dear friend after all, and always flush. Those diamonds swinging from her earlobes? They were paid for by all the Mr. Healds. Mr. Heald is no worse than most and better than some. She must remember to invite him to the musicale on Sunday night at the Parisian Mansion and stand him a bottle of champagne. She cannot afford to lose the patronage and goodwill of Mr. Heald.

A seance usually refreshes her. Not this time. She's only glad that her Rachael is doing well in the Summerland after life cheated her so cruelly. That bittersweet thought instantly hardens her heart as she finds Li'l Lucy lingering in the foyer with Mr. Watkins.

"Pack your things," she orders the girl. "Off to Sutter Street with you."

"But Miss Malone," Li'l Lucy says, "I still ache, and Chief Silver Thorne said. . . ."

"Never mind Chief Silver Thorne. Be quick about it." There, you see? Never mix employees in personal affairs. Oh, give them an inch! The biz is the biz. "And clean the place up proper, Li'l Lucy. I'm letting out those rooms today." She smiles at the young gentleman, who is definitely looking quite the worse for wear. "Mr. Watkins, we should talk. Will you come up to my parlor? Would you care for some champagne? I'm as thirsty as a camelopard myself."

"Gladly. I'm dry as a bone, Miss Malone. But I do believe you mean a camel. Nasty beasts that run about the desert and spit and bite and smell something dreadful. A camelopard, on the other hand, is a lovely creature with an extraordinarily long neck that lives on the African savannah far south of the desert and nibbles charmingly on jungle foliage."

"Ah, a scholar, then."

"And a gentleman." He shows off his sparkling white teeth. "Please excuse my poor manners. I just got off the train from Saint Louis, and I'm beat."

Bang, bang, bang! Firecrackers pop in the street. "I'll show you, ya lout!" Two bruisers commence a brawl in front of her door, fists swinging, their pals cheering them on. "Heeey, biff 'im one, Johnny!" "I'll smash yer ugly mug!"

Never has Jessie seen such a Fourth of July.

Huffing and puffing every blasted inch of the three flights up, her stays cutting into her liver at every stair, Jessie takes Mr. Watkins to her private parlor on the top floor. "Got to look into one of them elevator contraptions that the swells use in their skysc.r.a.pers downtown," she tells him as she leads him inside. Sure and this is her pride and joy. A room of her own design, not at all like the sitting room for the sweet spirits and Madame De Ca.s.sin.

When Jessie bought the three-story Stick-Eastlake mansion with the intention of securing her private residence above, private boarders below, the place was as plain as a pig, the paint peeling to shavings. Since the seventies, lower Dupont Street had become a tenderloin. Respectable folk fled the old city as the poor of every nation flooded in, tainting once-genteel streets with vice and sport and crime, with laundry flapping on clothes lines and sour cooking smells and unruly children.

But the rooms were huge, the architecture sound, the views superb. A good purchase it was, in spite of the rough neighborhood. To the southwest, Jessie sees the top story of the Palace Hotel and Lucky Baldwin's showplace. Due south, the panorama of Market Street, the c.o.c.ktail Route, and all the delights of the old city. To the northwest, the exotic curved roofs of Chinatown like another little country. Behind Chinatown, purple hills scarcely touched by civilization--Russian Hill, Pacific Heights. To the northeast the scruffy dome of Telegraph Hill-"dirty awld smelly awld Telygraft Hill"-and the German castle at its peak. And when Jessie throws open the wobbly gla.s.s of the east window and leans far out over the sill, she glimpses the whole crawling heap of the Barbary Coast. Beyond that, the bobbing masts of the great clipper ships, the steamers and the fishing trawlers, the blue-gray bay sparkling when the sun rises like a sack of spilled diamonds.

It is a beautiful house, and Jessie has covered her parlor's walls with the finest rose-colored damask she ever did see with a rose-of-Sharon pattern. That's for starters. She has hung every window with scarlet velvet curtains that sweep up and back and dangle thickets of ta.s.sels and thick furry fringe. She has laid Persian carpets down on the plank maple floor, layer upon layer of carpets till the floor is a patchwork of arabesques and medallions.

And Jessie has bought and arranged good furniture, some wood, some wicker, some fancy French gilt. Ferns in ma.s.sive Chinese pots adorn every sunlit corner. And gold, lots of gold-a gold tea set, gold dinnerware, gold lamp sticks, gold embroidered doilies, gold statuettes of Venuses with their heads and arms intact. She cannot abide Venuses with their heads and arms lopped off. Her long mirror is framed in pure gold, the frame encrusted with birds and foliage in gold and silver. A gold-plated spittoon is set out just for show, since Jessie abides no chaw in her private parlor. Gilt frames surround every piece of Art.

Oh, and the Art! She prides herself on her Art collection. She has made them Gump boys richer than thieves in their import business. One of the Gumps' best customers, that's what Miss Jessie Malone is, more than two of them Sn.o.b Hill ladies rolled up into one. She's got fauns playing flutes and cupids on the wing. But mostly Jessie collects nudes, the female in all her glory. Nudes recline on couches. Nudes stroll through fantastic gardens, through forests, through fields. Nudes are sold into slavery, their hands bound behind their pearlescent backs. Nudes pose in the bedroom, in the bath, in the stables. What a hoot!

Now Mariah brings in goblets and a gold-plated ice bucket. Jessie frowns. She should have bought the solid gold bucket, not this cheap plate, but her pony lost at Ingleside Track and she balked at the expense. She pops the cork with a thirsty smile, splashes champagne into the goblets. The young gentleman studies her Art collection, his expression inscrutable.

"Why, Miss Malone, you've got an Aubrey Beardsley!" Mr. Watkins exclaims over the photomechanical reproduction of an odd line drawing Jessie has never understood except that it is very wicked.

"A gambler whose name you would recognize gave me that drawing."

The drawing depicts denizens of the night--a masked clown, a depraved ballerina, a devil-eared satyr with a huge erect p.e.n.i.s and cloven hooves.

"Is it true Mr. Beardsley slept with Oscar Wilde?" Jessie hands Mr. Watkins a goblet and smiles at his surprise. She follows the international gossip as best she can. "I heard that after the glory of his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Mr. Wilde was imprisoned for having his way with young men."