Uneasy Spirits: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (28 page)

“
Albert started to question me, but just then a woman I have never seen before, she must be the lady’s maid who is his wife, came running into the kitchen, saying ‘she’s back.’ Albert and Mrs. Nickerson hotfooted it up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Schmitt and me just standing there.”

Annie thought for a moment and said, “I must say, Kathleen, that does all seem to fit with the young man you saw being Evie May. She said her name was Edmund? Are you sure he, I mean she, wasn’t pretending to be a younger boy? I told you about Eddie, who I met on Wednesday.”

“
Well, ma’am, she wasn’t dressed like a boy, not with that slouch hat on, and long pants, and she didn’t act like a young boy. She acted like a young man on the prowl.”

“
Remarkable.” Annie sat for a moment, trying to take it all in. “I must say, your night was more exciting than mine, except for the very end.”

“
What happened then, ma’am?” Kathleen leaned closer, eager to hear Mrs. Fuller’s adventures.

“
Most of the séance was pretty much the same as the other two I have attended,” said Annie, “except of course for there being no Evie May. Mrs. Larkson was visited by a spirit that upset her a good deal. The spirit seemed to be accusing her of breaking a promise of some sort. Given her cousin Jack’s little visit to Arabella on Wednesday, I think we can assume that those two are in it together, whatever it is. I wonder if Mrs. Stein’s daughter could have a talk with Isobel Larkson, to get her to confide in her.

“
But the real excitement came when the spirit of Mr. Hapgood’s brother appeared. He was a very angry spirit, abused poor Mr. Hapgood terribly, called him names, and accused him of not doing his duty. Then everything got very noisy. Wind whipped through the room, knocking over a chair, and Arabella, in this extraordinary voice of doom, said something about hell fire. Mr. Hapgood fainted.”

“
What!” Kathleen’s voice rose, and then she put her hand over her mouth.

“
He fainted, or at least he looked like he fainted. Miss Herron, the nurse, went into action, taking his pulse and chaffing his wrists or something. About then, the lights went up, Albert came into the room, and Simon ushered us all out, saying that Mr. Hapgood would be fine.”

“
Hilda will be so upset. She was very worried.”

Annie looked at Kathleen strangely. “Hilda? Who is Hilda? Is that Mrs. Schmitt’s first name? Why would she be upset?”

Kathleen giggled. “Oh, no, I meant Mrs. Hapgood. She asked me to call her by her first name. Albert eventually came back to the kitchen and told me to return to the front hallway, but to take Mrs. Hapgood some tea. We had ever such a nice chat. Turns out Hilda goes to St. Boniface, near us. Course you know I go there some times for mass when there isn’t time to go to St. Mary’s. Mostly Germans at St. Boniface, but it doesn’t matter, Latin is Latin, no matter the accent.”

Annie smiled to herself, thinking about how good Kathleen was at putting someone at ease. “In your nice chat with Mrs. Hapgood, did she confirm what Mrs. Nickerson told you, that Harold Hapgood has a problem with alcohol? Remember, I had wanted to follow through on the possibility that Mrs. Hapgood was the one who wrote the anonymous letter to the police.”

“
She didn’t talk about writing any letter, but she did talk a little about her husband’s struggles with drink. First she told me how she met Mr. Hapgood. Her father runs a dairy farm in Happy Valley. Harold used to come out to pick up cheeses for his pa’s store, and he fell head over heals in love. Hilda said there was a terrible row. Mr. Hapgood’s folks felt she was beneath them. Real snooty about anyone who didn’t come to America with the pilgrims. But she said Harold stood up to his pa and told him he didn’t care. He said his pa could disinherit him if need be, but he was marrying his Hilda. Wasn’t that romantic?”

Annie smiled and said, “Yes, very. So what happened? Since Mr. Hapgood is running the store, I guess his father didn’t disinherit him?”

“
Not in the end. Hilda said that at first Harold did have to go out and find another job, and they were pretty hard up. Her folks helped out as best they could. But then Mr. Hapgood’s remaining brother died, or got killed, or something, and his pa got real sick and he had nowhere else to turn. So, back Harold came.”

“
Like the prodigal son,” Annie murmured.

“
But Hilda said she wishes it never happened. Her in-laws just sucked all the life out of him. ‘Nothing were ever good enough,’ were her exact words. From what she said, that’s when she found out her husband had always had problems with drinking. I’d told her about my pa, so she felt comfortable confiding in me. She said Mr. Hapgood had even been under a doctor’s care when he was younger, before he met Hilda. She said he didn’t drink at all when they met, so it was a real disappointment to her when he started up again.”

Annie said, “But Kathleen, did she explain why he would come to these séances? You would think he would be glad to be free of them, if they were such wretched people. They certainly aren’t very pleasant ghosts.”

“
Hilda told me that Simon Frampton wrote her husband a letter, said he had a message from his departed father. She wanted Harold to ignore it, but he couldn’t stay away. She says he keeps hoping to get their approval. He tries to tell them how splendidly the store is doing, but they won’t listen. Oh, ma’am, she sounded so sad. She said, ‘They never let him live when they were alive, and they won’t be content until he is as dead as they are.’”

“
Spiritualism. Mrs. Ada Foye 126 Kearny st Sittings daily. Meetings Wednesday evenings at 8.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
, 1879

As Annie followed the maid up a narrow flight of stairs, she experienced an odd sense of familiarity. While this lovely, Italianate-style house on Octavia Street in Pacific Heights had probably been built within the last decade and was, therefore, more modern and elegant than her own, Annie recognized the telltale signs that Mrs. Flora Hunt, the famous trance medium, now lived in a San Francisco boarding house. The first clue had been the two young men who passed her on the front steps without a single glance. Next came the unusual number of coats and umbrellas hanging from the coat rack in the front hallway. Finally the maid had led her up the stairs to what should have been the private section of a single-family home. She was now standing in front of the door to a suite of rooms like the ones Esther and Herman Stein occupied in her own boarding house.

Annie’s nervousness abated somewhat. She realized she had been approaching this meeting with Mrs. Hunt as if she was still the schoolgirl who had gone with her father to see the medium perform in New York City, nearly fourteen years earlier. Flora Stockwell Trainor had been her name then, and in her twenties she had been at the peak of her popularity, packing the three thousand-seat theater on Broadway every night for weeks on end. While her father saw Mrs. Hunt as no more than a clever performer, Annie, thirteen and still reeling from the death of her mother, had been quite taken by the idea that this young woman was able to communicate with the dead. She remembered looking up at the tiny, beautiful, doll-like figure on stage, hearing her deep voice spin magical visions of eternal gardens, and thinking that surely this woman, her pale blond hair glowing in the darkened theater, cornflower blue eyes lifted upward, was touched by the angels. When Flora Hunt had wakened from her trance and began to field the series of questions asked by a group of ministers, Annie had been impressed by her calm, reasonable answers and had felt angry with the men for expecting this heavenly creature to bandy words with mere mortals.

The evening had made such an impression on her that even when she was much older and had come to her father’s conclusion that it had all been a sham she was still thrilled when she discovered
Shadows and Light
, Mrs. Hunt’s memoir. Annie lived with her husband’s aunt Lottie at the time, and she was searching for ideas to help create Madam Sibyl. While Mrs. Hunt hadn’t repudiated her Spiritualist beliefs in her book, she did have a very detailed chapter on the fraudulent practices of those mediums she dubbed “false prophets,” which Annie found very helpful. As she stood waiting to meet Mrs. Hunt, Annie thought it somehow fitting that once again she was turning to her childhood idol for advice.

The maid opened the door to a pleasantly appointed sitting room, bathed in late afternoon light from a set of spacious bay windows. A man and a woman were sitting in two armchairs grouped in front of the fireplace, where a small blaze competed with the sunlight. They rose as Annie entered the room. Annie would have recognized the woman anywhere. Flora Hunt was still petite: her dark gray silk emphasized her tiny waist. While her blond hair now showed some gray and tiny lines surrounded her blue eyes, she still gave the overall impression of ethereal youthfulness.

Moving forward, her hand outstretched in welcome, Mrs. Hunt said, “Dear Mrs. Fuller, how nice to meet you. I must say I was very intrigued by your note, and I do hope that I will be of service to you. Please, let me introduce my husband, Mr. Hunt.”

Mr. Hunt, who came to stand behind his wife, resting one large hand on her shoulder, nodded and gave a reserved smile. Annie marveled at the contrast between the two. Mr. Hunt, while not much taller than his wife, was solidly built; his sun-roughened skin, sandy brown hair, wide shoulders, and short legs suggesting he was a man who was rooted in the earth. She then remembered from Mrs. Hunt’s memoir that she had met this man, her second husband, in a tiny town in Nebraska, and that in addition to being a Universalist minister, he had been a farmer. A man who, with his spinster sister, had taken in Flora, whose health and spirit were broken, and healed her.

“
Won’t you please have a seat by the fire? The afternoon has turned chilly.” Mrs. Hunt pointed to the chair she had just vacated and turned to the servant. “Maureen, if you would please bring the tea set over by our chairs. I will ring if we need you further.” She and her husband then sat on the other two chairs grouped around the fire.

Annie sat down and said, “Thank you so much for seeing me. As I explained in my letter, I have been asked by an acquaintance, actually a woman who lives in my boarding house, to help convince her sister to stop attending the séances held by a couple, Simon and Arabella Frampton. From reading your memoir and the articles you wrote for the
San Francisco Morning Call
, it was my understanding that you sometimes helped expose those mediums you felt were using fraudulent methods. I hoped you might be able to help me.”

“
The Framptons, yes, I have heard of them,” Mrs. Hunt responded. “I believe they arrived in San Francisco this past spring. I haven’t heard any particular complaints about them from among the Spiritualist community. May I ask why your friend wishes to stop her sister from attending these séances?”

Annie recounted Miss Pinehurst’s fears that Sukie’s obsession with her dead son was damaging her health and her marriage, if not in fact, her future salvation. Mrs. Hunt replied, “Well, I can understand why, if Miss Pinehurst doesn’t believe in universal salvation or the tenets of Spiritualism, she would find her sister’s behavior distressing. However, as you have read my memoir, you must realize I do accept the possibility of communicating with those who have died. It is only those unscrupulous individuals who use tricks to feign communications with the spirit world that I have any interest in exposing. Do you have evidence that the Framptons are insincere?”

Mrs. Hunt’s direct gaze unsettled Annie. She cheeks grew hot at the embarrassing thought that Madam Sibyl might fall under Mrs. Hunt’s definition of unscrupulous individuals. Trying not to sound defensive, she explained why she believed the Framptons were frauds. “First of all, I have learned that Simon Frampton previously had a career as a magician, with his wife as his assistant, and the séances I have attended seem to be heavily dependent on the use of manufactured lights and sounds, carefully orchestrated for effect. From my reading about Spiritualism, it was my impression that the use of piano music, drums, trumpets, and tambourines are commonly associated with mediums who were later discovered to be frauds.”

Mrs. Hunt smiled and said, “Yes, despite the Scripture’s frequent reference to musical instruments and heavenly choirs, it is those mortals who wish to fool the unsuspecting who pipe music in from the next room, not the celestial spheres.”

Charmed by Mrs. Hunt’s sense of humor, Annie continued. “It isn’t just the theatrical nature of the séances that concerns me. It is the content of the communications. While my own experience has been fairly benign—for example, Mrs. Frampton’s attempt to reproduce my father’s voice was laughably inaccurate—nevertheless, some of the spirits she conjures up appear quite malevolent. One threatened a poor young man with hell-fire. Even more disturbing, Miss Pinehurst’s sister has been told by the purported spirit of her son that he is going to be playing soon in Summerland with her unborn child. She has interpreted this to mean her pregnancy will either not carry to term, or that she will lose this child in infancy as well.”

Mrs. Hunt drew in her breath sharply, and her husband reached over and took her hand as she began to speak. “Mrs. Fuller, no wonder you and Miss Pinehurst are concerned. While communication with the spirit world is difficult and can produce inexplicable and incomprehensible results, what you have described is wicked, and not true mediumship. Now tell me how you believe I can help.”

Annie asked Mrs. Hunt for suggestions on what to look for if and when she and Nate got a chance to examine the séance room Sunday night. Mrs. Hunt described the different ways tables could be made to shake and how a medium might use her unencumbered feet to press levers and push buttons attached to wires to make noises.