Genteel Spirits (Daisy Gumm Majesty Books) (4 page)

Anyhow
, after
having heart-to-heart chats
with
Sam;
Johnny Buckingham,
our good friend as well as
a
captain at the Salvation Army;
and Dr. Benjamin,
I wouldn’t have blamed Billy if he’d done himself in.
I’d tried having a heart-to-heart talk with Billy, too, but he wouldn’t allow me into his innermost hell. All I knew for certain was that h
e hated living as he did. Worse, he thought I hated it, too.
He was right; I
did, but not because I
ever once
regretted marrying Billy. I adored Billy; I only hated what had happened to him. Heck, if he
were
to live another forty or fifty years, I’d be right there at his side, cheering him on.

Billy thought I pitie
d him, and he didn’t like it. I did
pity him, and I didn’t like it, either.

However, Dr. Benjamin, who saw Billy weekly, had told me more than once that
influenza, pneumonia,
bronchitis or some other chest ailment would probably take Billy away from me one day in the not-too-distant future. The notion depressed me greatly. I couldn’t imagine life without Billy, even Billy as he
had been returned to me after being gassed out of his foxhole in France and shot as he
tried to crawl to safety
. Naturally, when we married, we never anticipated the tragedy that had ended our life as we’d expected it to be.
We’d believed our
life together
would be sunshine and
flowers
. Heck, we lived in the City of Roses, didn’t we?

There I go again: digressing. T
o get back to Sam, he was good for Billy
and for my father
. Therefore, I tolerated him ever so much better than I had when we’d first met. I still wasn’t sure what he
thought about me, although I kne
w he disapproved of my line of work.
When we’d first met and he’d accused me of fortune-telling, I’d become highly indignant. I didn’t tell fortunes, darn it
, and I told him so in no uncertain terms.
I conducted séances, interpreted tarot cards, manipulated the Ouija boar
d and read palms. If people with
lots of money and no brains
wanted to pay me for doing those things, more power to me, I say. None of my skills
, even though people paid me to ply them,
could be considered fortune-telling
, unless one wanted to stretch a point
until it snapped clean in half
. It seemed to me that Sam did exactly that, and I
’d
detested him for it
.

There was another thing I resented like fire:
I could never get either Sam or Billy to acknowledge that my job truly helped people. But it did. Our country—indeed, the whole world—had been through two
and a half
hideous
tragedies only a f
ew years earlier: the Great War,
the great influenza pandemic
and the ensuing financial problems resulting therefrom
. Both of Billy’s parents
had
died in the epidemic, and many, many young men had died in the war
, including Aunt Vi’s only son
, who’d been buried in France
.
After the war, the country had been plunged into a financial depression that was still devastating to common folk like the Gumms and the Majesty
s
and, evidently, Gladys Pennywhistle
. The only people who weren’t affected by the depression
were the ones who were so rich
they weren’t affected by anything.
But that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.

Th
e
point is that during the war and the concurrent pandemic, thousands—perhaps millions—of people had died.
I considered it part of my job to give comfort to people who needed
help coping with their losses
.
My work
made
my
clients . . . not
jovial
,
certainly,
but contented. I made sure to let them
know that their loved ones were happy on the Other Side, and that they wanted their survivors to live
cheerful
and fulfilled lives until called by God to join them. Does that sound evil to you? Well, it doesn’t to me.

However, Sam and I now tolerated each other, which was a step in the right direction, at least for me, since he spent so much time at our house. I’d
once
kind of hoped he’d become interested in another friend of mine
,
a girl with whom I sang duets in church from time to time. But neither Sam nor Lucille Spinks, the girl in question,
had
seemed to be much taken with each other.
Well, Lucille had been taken with Sam, but he hadn’t returned her regard, so that was that.
Anyhow, it was probably better that they hadn’t become a couple, because then Sam would have spent more time with Lucy than he did with Billy, and that would have hurt Billy who had enough
pain
to contend with already.

Anyhow . . . where was I? Oh, yes, I remember. Sam came to dinner
the night Gladys called
, and I told him I was going to hold a séance for Mrs. Winkworth and meet Monty Mountjoy and Lola de la Monica. I was surprised
and annoyed
when he scowled at me.

I glared back
at him
. I wasn’t about to take any guff from Sam Rotondo about my job. “Well? What’s the matter with that?”

My voice held a challenge that Ma didn’t like. She said, “Daisy,” in
that
voice. You know the one I mean. All mothers use it to keep herd on their children.

“Nothing’s the matter with that,” said Sam, sounding as grumpy as all get-out.

“Then how come you’re frowning at me?”

“I’m not frowning at you.”

“Yes you are! Darn you, Sam Rotondo, what’s the matter with Lurlene Winkworth? For heaven’s sake, from
everything I’ve read
about her, she’s the most respectable female alive
in this world
today. I read an article in the
Herald
that traced her ancestors back to Plymouth Rock, for Pete’s sake, although she belongs to the DOC rather than the DAR, which I consider silly, although that’s probably because my folks are Yankees.”

The Daughters of the Confederacy
prided
themselves on having come from Confederate stock. The Daughters of the American Revolution, on the other hand,
prided
themselves on having come from
the stock of original Europeans to settle
our grand land. Personally, I didn’t care what my forebears did or didn’t do
. I had enough
on my hands,
what with dealing with Billy and helping to support
my family
. Besides that, I’d begun to consider wars of any kind at all complete failures of communication and diplomacy. I know. My views are probably radical, but don’t forget that I lived every day with the result of one man’s obsession, and I was far from the only one. My
belief
, in case anybody cares, is that the guys who want to
start
wars should jolly well go
ahead
and
fight them
. Themselves. And leave the young
,
healthy boys they’d normally send to
fight and
die for them at home where they belong.

Where was I? I’m sorry I keep getting distracted. Ah, yes.

“There’s nothing wrong with Mrs. Winkworth,” said Sam as though he didn’t believe himself. “But that idiot grandson of hers is trouble.”

“Oh?” I felt myself on firm ground here. “And why is that? Because the newspapers say so?
Because reporters dog his footsteps and report salacious gossip that probably isn’t true?
The studios have entire publicity departments to make up stories about
their
pictures stars, don’t forget. Harold Kincaid has told me all about that, and if anyone should know, it’s Harold.” I felt like adding
so there
, but knew it would be childish, so I didn’t.

“No. Not because the newspapers say so.
I’ve heard things from other sources that I can’t go in to here
. Police business.”

Indignant, I cried, “If that isn’t just like you, Sam Rotondo! First you bring up something to intrigue us and then tell us you can’t talk about it! Nuts.”

My mother said, “Daisy” again. Huh.

Sam sighed. By the way, that night Vi had prepared a delicious beef stew with lots of vegetables and
the most tender
biscuits
you can even imagine
with which to sop up the gravy. My aunt Vi was the best cook in Pasadena. Probably the entire United States of America. What’s more, we were going to have floating island for dessert. I love floating island, which consists of a creamy custard sauce with little baked meringues floating on top of it. Hence, the name, in case you hadn’t already guessed.

Billy, gallant as he
was
, tried to cut the hostility in the room. “If the woman’s ancestors go back to infinity, why isn’t she a
member of the
DAR? That would mean her family’s older than some Confederate family that might have shipped over
from Ireland during the
potato
famine in the earlier
eighteen hundreds.”

Boy, I loved my husband!
H
e knew by that time that it would take a real distraction and not a mere “Daisy” from my mother to get Sam and me to quit fussing at each other. I looked over at him and grinned. “I think she’s still fighting the Civil War in her mind, Billy. Some of those old southern families just won’t give it up.”

Pa said, “Well, personally, I don’t give a hoot. Maybe that’s because my side won.”

“Probably,” said Sam, his voice still evincing a little strain, but evidently willing to turn the topic.

“I read in the
National Geographic
that some southerners won’t even call it the Civil War,” Billy said. “To them it’s the ‘War
Between the States
or ‘the Recent Unpleasantness.’ ”

“
Recent
?” I laughed. “The Civil War ended almost sixty years ago. Those guys have long memories.”

Billy shrugged. “I reckon
they do, and maybe for some cause
. The south was
well and truly
destroyed during the war.
Their whole economic way of life was ruined.
I guess they carry grudges.
Aside from the slave issue,
Sherman cut a swath through some of those states so deep, they haven’t recovered yet.”

Billy’s favorite magazine was the
National Geographic
, probably because it allowed him access to people and places he’d never be able to see for himself. Even if his health hadn’t been ruined by the war, chances were slim that we middle-class Majestys would ever have
been able to tour
the world. Or even the South.

“Well, maybe so,” said I. “But I don’t understand how anybody can justify slavery
, even if
the institution of slavery
did save the plantation owners money
.”

“I don’
t, either,
”
said Sam.

“Everyone else has to hire workers,” I pointed out. “Why not farmers and tobacco growers?”

“Right,” said Billy
. “Why not, indeed?”

Murmurs of agreement followed, and m
y sentiment seemed to be unanimous at the dinner table,
which was nice
since th
e conversation had begun with dissension.

Billy said, “Slaves were considered property. Sort of like horses and oxen. I read somewhere
, probably
in
the
National Geographic
,
that a slave had been hanged for running away from his master, and the State of Georgia
gave
the slave-owner four hundred dollars in compensation for lost property.”

I stared at him. “That’s . . . horrible.” My mind turned to Jackson, Mrs. Pinkerton’s gate keeper, a fine colored gentleman who’d taught me some very interesting things about voodoo and other types of mystical stuff he’d gleaned from his boyhood in
Louisiana
. “It absolutely boggles my mind how evil people can be to each other, yet still call themselves Christians. Or whatever. I’m thinking Chinese emperors. Didn’t those guys do some pretty horrid stuff to their people?”

“And,” said Billy, smiling, “d
on’t forget
that
good old
R
o
manian guy,
Vlad
the
Impaler
. He nailed some Turkish officials
’
turbans to their heads at one point in his career.”