GENTEEL SPIRITS

Five Star/Cengage

July 2011

ISBN 978-1-4328-2500-3

 

 

Chapter One

 

The first few months of 1922 weren’t what I’d call boring, exactly. Nevertheless, the fact was that my best client, Mrs. Algernon Pinkerton, nee Madeline Kincaid—but no. I’m wrong about that. However, since I don’t know her maiden name, it’ll just have to do—was on another long, long trip with her new husband.

Mrs. Pinkerton’s daughter Stacy Kincaid, formerly bane of my existence, had yet to fall from grace since she’d joined the Salvation Army, so she wasn’t causing me any problems.

No ghosts requiring exorcism had taken possession of Mrs. Bissel’s basement, as had happened once before.

Flossie Buckingham, a dear friend and the wife of Johnny Buckingham, captain in the Salvation Army and, therefore, firmly in charge of the aforementioned Stacy, was “with child,” and elated about it. Actually, both Buckinghams were. And so was I. For them.

Pasadena, California, my home town, remained serene and beautiful in all its bounteous spring glory, but . . . Well, the fact of the matter was that not much was going on in the Gumm-Majesty household. You’d think that was a good thing, wouldn’t you? It might have been, except that all the nothing happening had me on pins and needles.

Mind you, the rest of the world continued to turn, and lots of stuff was going on in it. For one thing, a conference was taking place in Cannes, France, concerning retribution payments required of the Germans after the late Great War. As far as I was concerned, there was no way Germany could possibly repay the world for the damage it and its foul Kaiser had caused. Heck, I lived with one of the results of the Kaiser’s insanity every day of my life.

My beloved husband, Billy Majesty, formerly tall, athletic and handsome, had joined up in ‘seventeen when the USA entered the European Conflict, and had come back a little more than a year later a broken man. Literally. Not only had he been shot but, worse, his lungs had been permanently damaged by the most evil weapon ever perpetrated on the world: mustard gas. I expect someone, someday, will invent a weapon of war even worse than that blasted gas, but whoever does it will probably be a German. And damned for all eternity, if I have any say in the matter, which I don’t, and which also means it’s probably a good thing God is in charge of judgment and not Daisy Gumm Majesty.

I don’t really mean that—the hating-all-Germans part. I’d learned late in 1921 that not all Germans are vicious and evil. But I still resented the blasted Kaiser and his partners in crime more than I can ever possibly say—and I’ve said a lot. My poor Billy was a wreck of his formerly wonderful self. What was worse was that, in the early months of 1922, he seemed to be weakening almost daily, which accounted for several of the aforementioned pins and needles. He used to try to walk, swearing he’d be able to leave his wheelchair behind one day. By early 1922, he almost never wanted even to try to walk. I feared he was giving up on life and that not merely made me want to cry, but it made me want to personally tear a pound of flesh from the Kaiser’s ugly body. And, unlike Shakespeare’s Shylock, there’d be blood when I wielded my knife.

But I guess you don’t need to know that much about my grievances against the Kaiser. I should probably get back to what had happened during the early months of 1922.

Billy had been interested when the American Professional Football Association renamed itself the National Football League in January, but I didn’t much care. Fortunately for Billy, I’d bought him a radio-signal receiving set a year or so earlier, so he could listen to football and baseball games when they were broadcast. Radio, which is a much more convenient way of referring to the things, seemed to be expanding its horizons like mad, too. Americans were buying radios by the thousands, and President Harding had even installed one in the White House.

“April Showers,” by Al Jolson, was a top hit. I bought the sheet music to it because the Gumms and Majestys—Billy and I were the only Majestys in the house. Ma and Pa and Aunt Vi were the Gumms—liked to gather ‘round the piano of an evening. I’d play and we’d all sing. I’d bought “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” which was also by Al Jolson, and which was a fun, toe-tapping melody; and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” by Margaret Young. I tell you, if we didn’t have much else, we had music in the house.

Probably the most shocking thing that occurred in early 1922 was the as-yet-unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor in Hollywood. There had been tons of scandals regarding moving-picture people in those days, but a real, honest-to-goodness murder was worse even than when Fatty Arbuckle was arrested, tried and found not guilty in another scandalous case involving picture people and what finally proved to be an accidental death. Even though he was found not to be guilty of murder, Mr. Arbuckle’s career had been ruined. Scandals did that to a person.

That didn’t mean the pictures themselves were bad, only that some of the people who worked in and around them were. In fact, my family and I really enjoyed Blood and Sand, which had starred Rudolph Valentino. I actually probably enjoyed that one more than I should have, given that I had no business ogling other men, for heaven’s sake. Then again, how many Rudolph Valentinos are there in the world to ogle? Besides, every other red-blooded American female was doing the same thing. Valentino aside, we saw other pictures that were quite entertaining, including Oliver Twist and The Prisoner of Zenda, which made me cry. Nobility of character always does that to me.

The most exciting thing that had happened to my family in 1922 up to the time this story begins was that Billy and I had started taking Spike, our black-and-tan dachshund—which I’d taken in payment for ridding Mrs. Bissel’s home of the ghost I mentioned earlier—to dog-obedience school. The Pasanita Dog Obedience Club held dog-training sessions on Saturday mornings in Brookside Park.

Billy, although confined to his wheelchair, nevertheless cheered Spike and me on from the sidelines, while Mrs. Pansy Hanratty, a rather mannish woman, but a darling, taught us humans how to teach our dogs to heel, sit, stay, lie down, fetch and so forth. All three of us had a great time at these training sessions, and Spike was doing swell, as long as I remembered how to make him obey, which I mostly did. Spike and I practiced every day, generally in the back yard with Billy and my father watching from the porch and laughing at us. Still and all, Spike was more obedient specimen than were most of the human children I knew.

Obedience training aside, for the most part life was pretty much as it had always been in our household since Billy came home from the war. Ma worked at the Hotel Marengo as the chief bookkeeper, which was a darned impressive job for a woman in those days. Aunt Vi cooked for the Pinkertons, although they, as I’ve already mentioned, were on another long trip somewhere. They liked to travel. I didn’t mind them being gone, even though their absence did mean my spiritualist business slumped a bit during their absences. For one thing, her being elsewhere in the world meant life was more peaceful in the Gumm-Majesty household, and I also had lots of time to practice obedience training with Spike.

You see, Mrs. Pinkerton’s first husband, Eustace Kincaid, had been a horrid man, a thief and a general crumb, and it made me happy that Mrs. Kincaid had finally married a nice man. Mind you, I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for Stacy to return to her formerly flapperish ways and depart from the Salvation Army, but her defection from said Army wouldn’t affect me too much one way or the other, except that when she behaved badly, Mrs. Pinkerton called on my services a lot. Then again, no matter what Stacy was doing at any given time, Mrs. Pinkerton always had tizzies that required me to bring my Ouija board or my tarot cards to her home for spiritualist sessions. That was lucky for me, as my family needed the dough.

Ma, Pa, Aunt Vi, Billy, Spike and I still lived in our tidy little bungalow on Marengo Avenue in Pasadena, California. We still walked to the Methodist-Episcopal Church (North), where I sang alto in the choir, on the corner of Marengo and Colorado every Sunday. My best friend was still Harold Kincaid, a gentleman of whom Billy didn’t approve because . . . well, because Harold was what Billy called a “faggot.” I don’t know why, although I do know what the slang term means, and I think it’s cruel. Harold couldn’t help being what he was. What’s more, his . . . um . . . particular gentleman friend, Delray Farrington, was the person who had saved the Kincaid Bank when the evil Mr. Kincaid did a bunk and ran off with a bunch of bearer bonds. Why, if it hadn’t been for Del, the bank would have crashed and all its investors would have lost their entire savings! So there, Billy Majesty.

Oh, and there was still Sam Rotondo. Sam, a detective with the Pasadena Police Department, was Billy’s best friend. Sometimes I considered Sam my worst enemy, because he’d entangled me in one or two of his cases. And it’s not true, whatever Sam says, that said entanglement was all my fault. How could I have known the police would raid that speakeasy? Or that a crook had infiltrated the cooking class I taught at the Salvation Army? Of course, the fact that I, Daisy Gumm Majesty, who not only could but did burn water, was teaching the class in the first place might have been considered some sort of crime, but it wasn’t the sort Sam Rotondo would ordinarily care about.

Sam and I didn’t exactly get along together, if you haven’t already figured that out for yourself. But Sam is neither here nor there—although I preferred him there. Unfortunately, he could generally be found in my very own living room, playing gin rummy with Billy and Pa. I was the only one in the family who didn’t adore Sam Rotondo. Ma, Vi, Billy and Pa thought he was great. Even Spike, who had once perpetrated an indignity on one of his big, fat policemanly shoes as a puppy, liked Sam by that time. Oh, well.

Probably the most exciting thing that happened in my fair city of Pasadena in 1922 was that Mr. Montgomery “Monty” Mountjoy, an actor darned near as handsome as Rudolph Valentino, bought his elderly, genteel, southern grandmother, Mrs. Beauregard “Lurlene” Winkworth, a fabulous home on San Pasqual Street. Both the Pasadena Star News and the Evening Herald had a field day with that tidbit of information. Supposedly, Mrs. Winkworth, while from an old and distinguished South Carolina family, had fallen on hard times, and her grandson had rescued her in fine heroic fashion, thus cementing his gallant image as an icon off as well as on the silver screen.

For the most part, Pasadena was a moral, not to say stuffy, community, where motion-picture people weren’t exactly welcomed with open arms. This was especially true in light of the William Desmond Taylor affair and the constant news of drug and alcohol consumption among the members of the picture community. All this consumption was being carried out in the days of Prohibition, too. Huh.

Mind you, I doubted if anyone really knew anything against Mr. Mountjoy, although the press had tagged him as a gay blade and something of a Lothario for some months. The gossip columnists also claimed his fame and fortune had gone to his head and that he was in danger of becoming positively decadent in the manner of, say, Nero or Caligula or another one of those old Roman guys who bathed in wine and killed people for fun, in spite of having rescued his elderly grandmother from the clutches of poverty.

I, however, Daisy Gumm Majesty, understood that the press often got things wrong. In actual fact, Harold Kincaid, my aforesaid best friend, was a costumier for a motion-picture studio in Los Angeles, and he had told me more than once that the studios actually hired people to make up fake backgrounds and personalities for their “stars.” Harold had also informed me that Monty Mountjoy was in reality a kindhearted and relatively sober-sided gent who liked to read books and listen to classical music on his radio or gramophone most evenings. What’s more, according to Harold, when Mr. Mountjoy did go out on the town and was seen with a young woman from the pictures, the outing was invariably arranged by his studio.

Gee, you’d think I’d become cynical, knowing all this stuff, wouldn’t you? But I wasn’t. I could still be swept away by a well-made picture, just like everyone else in America. Heck, probably the whole world was watching moving pictures by that time. Besides, I earned my living pretending to talk to dead people for people with more money than sense. If that hadn’t made me cynical by 1922, after I’d been doing it for eleven years, I don’t suppose anything could.

In any case, all of the above doesn’t have anything to do with the story I’m about to relate. Well, some of it does, but I’ll get to that later.

You see, Billy, Vi and I were sitting at the kitchen table one Friday morning, eating the delicious breakfast Vi had made—have I mentioned that Vi cooks for us as well as Mrs. Pinkerton? Well, she does. And a good thing, too, since neither Ma nor I could cook for anything—when the telephone rang. Vi looked at me. Billy lowered the newspaper he’d been reading and looked at me, too. I sighed, got up from the table, and went to the far kitchen wall to pick up the receiver.

“I thought Mrs. Pinkerton was out of town,” Billy muttered under his breath. Billy didn’t appreciate having his restful mornings interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone. I couldn’t fault him for that. I also wondered who could be calling, since early-morning telephone calls generally came from Mrs. Pinkerton when she was in particular distress, and I was pretty sure she was riding a camel in Egypt at the moment.

“Gumm-Majesty residence,” I said into the receiver, as I almost always did. “Mrs. Majesty speaking.”

“I need to speak with Mrs. Desdemona Majesty, please.”

Perhaps I should explain that Desdemona thing. You see, when I was ten years old and first pretended to communicate through the Ouija board Mrs. Pinkerton (then Mrs. Kincaid) gave Aunt Vi, people actually believed I was speaking with spirits. So I let ‘em. I mean, if people wanted to believe that sort of rubbish and I could profit therefrom, why shouldn’t I? At any rate, that’s when my career as a spiritualist began. When I was ten years old. Honest. It’s the truth. Shortly thereafter, I decided Daisy was too humdrum a name for a genuine spiritualist. Not that I was one of those, but people thought I was, and that’s what mattered. So I selected Desdemona as my nom-de-whatever. Not until three or four years after that was I forced by a particularly mean-spirited English teacher to read Othello, or I’d probably have chosen another name. I mean, who wants share a name with a famous fictional murderee, for heaven’s sake?

Anyhow, I said, “This is she speaking.” I did so in my low, smooth, soothing spiritualist voice, since I knew nobody’d be telephoning for “Desdemona Majesty” unless the call was work-related.

“Mrs. Majesty, my name is Gladys Pennywhistle—”

“Gladys?”

Silence on the other end of the wire. For good reason, as I didn’t generally shriek into the telephone receiver and just had. But I was shocked. Gladys Pennywhistle and I had gone to school together ever since the first grade!

In an attempt to retrieve the moment, I said, “I beg your pardon, Gladys, but this is Daisy. You know, Daisy Gumm?”

“Daisy?” came uncertainly through the wire. Talk about sober-sided people, Gladys was probably the premier example of the species. Very smart, the Gladys I knew had absolutely no sense of humor and took everything seriously, even when it wasn’t. We’d never been close friends, although we always got along well.

“Yes. It’s Daisy. Only I’m Daisy Majesty now. Have been since 1917, in fact, when I married Billy Majesty, whom you may remember. He was a couple of years ahead of us in school. My professional name is Desdemona Majesty.”

“Daisy?” she said again, as if she couldn’t believe her ears.

“I’m sorry, Gladys. I didn’t mean to startle you. But yes, I am Desdemona Majesty, and I am the spiritualist for whom you’re looking.”

I decided not to startle her further by telling her I’d made up the Desdemona part of my name. For all she knew, I’d been named Desdemona at birth and Daisy was a nickname.

“I . . . I see.” Gladys cleared her throat. “What . . . what an interesting line of work you’re in, to be sure, Daisy. I mean Desdemona.”

“Please call me Daisy, and it certainly is. How may I help you?” I couldn’t quite imagine Gladys calling upon a spiritualist for herself. Although people do change over time, I couldn’t reconcile the Gladys I’d known in school, and who’d actually understood and enjoyed algebra, with a person who possessed the need for a spiritualist. Personally, I’d liked geometry until we got out of the theorem stage and had to begin using algebra again. For my money, algebra is for the birds. Not that it matters.

“Um . . . yes. I see. Thank you, Daisy.”

She didn’t say for what. I gave her one of my low, comforting spiritualistic “hmmms.” We spiritualists can make all sorts of gentling noises.

“Well, Daisy, you see . . .”

Poor Gladys seemed to be rather flustered. I probably shouldn’t have screeched at her, even though my raised voice had been kindly meant. I tried to help her. “Do you or does someone you know need my services, perhaps?”

“Yes.” There she was again: the no-nonsense, down-to-earth Gladys I’d known for most of my life. “You see, I work for Mrs. Lurlene Winkworth—”

“Oh, my! You do?” There I went again. Shoot, I was almost always more composed than this. I expect Mrs. Pinkerton having been away for so long had allowed my spiritualist mystique to rust a bit. “I beg your pardon, Gladys. I’m just surprised, is all. I mean, I just read about Mrs. Winkworth in the Star News. About her grandson buying her that mansion and all, I mean.”

“I . . . see.” Poor Gladys.

“I’m terribly sorry to have interrupted you again, Gladys. Please go on and tell me why you’re calling.”

She cleared her throat. Meticulous Gladys, whom I’d interrupted twice in one telephone call, and we hadn’t even got to the meat of her call yet. I tried to suppress my feeling of guilt.

“Yes,” she said eventually. “As I said, I work for Mrs. Lurlene Winkworth, as her private secretary.”

I almost shrieked again. I’d always figured Gladys would become a college professor or something like that. I’d never once figured her for a private secretary. Not there’s anything wrong with being a private secretary; it’s just that I couldn’t quite feature Gladys Pennywhistle in the role. I said, “Yes?” with becoming gentleness of tone.

“Mrs. Winkworth desired that I telephone you . . . as Desdemona Majesty, I mean . . . Oh, dear.”

I understood. “Please don’t be dismayed, Gladys. I’m sure you’re as surprised to find that I’ve become a spiritualist as I am to discover you’re a private secretary. By this time in my life, I expected to be married to Billy and rearing a family.” I shot a glance at my beloved, who scowled back at me, and I wished I hadn’t said that to Gladys. It wasn’t Billy’s fault we couldn’t have children. It was the thrice-cursed-forever Kaiser’s. Valiantly, I continued in spite of Billy’s scowl, “And I rather expected you to go into teaching or nursing or something of that nature.”

A heavy sigh made its way through the telephone wire. “You’re right, Daisy. I attended two years of study at Pasadena College, but then I couldn’t find a job, and I couldn’t afford to continue my education at a university. Being a secretary to Mrs. Winkworth isn’t exactly what I’d planned, but . . . well, the position is rewarding in its own way.”

Have I mentioned that the country was in something of a depression in 1922? Well, it was. Gladys wasn’t the only person out of work at that time. Thousands of soldiers had come back after risking their lives only to find they were apt to starve to death on the streets of America because they couldn’t secure employment, which didn’t seem fair at all. I considered myself and my family fortunate.

“I should say so!” Realizing my voice had risen again, I lowered it. “I’m sure everyone asks you this when they learn you work for Mrs. Winkworth, but have you met Mr. Monty Mountjoy?” I tried not to pant, especially with Billy sitting there, watching me and still frowning.

“Oh, my, yes. And I suggest you don’t believe anything the press has to say about him. He’s always a perfect gentleman when he visits his grandmother.”

Well, he’d better be, if his grandmother was anything like mine. Grandma Gumm, whom I’d only met twice because she lives in Massachusetts, never hesitated to give a girl a swat, whether the girl deserved it or not. Rather than reveal this, which spoke perhaps more about my childhood behavior than my grandmother’s charms, I said, “I’m glad to hear it. I never believe what I read in the newspapers about celebrities. One of my best friends works in the pictures, and he says most of the stuff you read is all made up anyway.”

“Yes, I believe that’s so.” Gladys didn’t sound as if she considered the situation to be in any way commendable. A woman of high moral standards as well as a brain, our Gladys. “This friend of yours wouldn’t be Mr. Harold Kincaid, would it?”

“Why, yes. Harold and I are great friends.”

“I see. He and Mr. Mountjoy are acquainted, and he mentioned that he knew you and that you were highly recommended as a spiritualist.”

I said, “How nice of him.”

The conversation sagged for a moment. Then Gladys cleared her throat again. “At any rate, the reason I called for . . . well, Desdemona Majesty, is that Mrs. Winkworth desires to hold a séance sometime soon. And . . . and Desdemona Majesty is reputed to be the best spiritualist medium in Pasadena.” I could tell Gladys still had trouble reconciling the Daisy Gumm she used to know, and who had been kind of a tomboy and definitely a prankster, with the Desdemona Majesty who conducted séances and communed with spirits. In truth, I couldn’t fault her for any confusion in that regard.

“I see.” All business now, I. “When does she want to hold this séance?”

“Two weeks from Saturday. That is the Saturday after tomorrow, if your schedule is free. In the evening. Around eight o’clock. Mr. Mountjoy, Mrs. Winkworth’s daughter, and Miss Lola de la Monica will be among the attendees.”

I darned near screamed again. But, my goodness gracious sakes alive! Miss Lola de la Monica was one of the leading lights of the motion-picture industry. What’s more, she and Monty Mountjoy were reputed to be having a hot and sordid affair. I guess Miss de la Monica fitted Mr. Mountjoy in when she wasn’t dallying with Mr. Rudolph Valentino, who was supposed to number among her many amours. Shoot, I don’t know how the woman did it. I only had one man in my life, and he was too much for me most of the time. Of course, that was the Kaiser’s fault, too.

But we’ve already discussed how imprecise published accounts of celebrities could be, haven’t we?

“Let me check my calendar, Gladys. Hold the wire for a moment, please.”

In truth, I knew darned well I was free to hold a séance the following Saturday evening. The only thing I had on schedule between now and then was a party at Mrs. Bissel’s house, where I would read tarot cards and palms for the guests; and two dog-obedience lessons, but those were held in the morning. However, I paused long enough for Gladys to think I was very much in demand. Which I was. Most of the time. The present lull was actually rather like a vacation for me, although I hoped it wouldn’t last too long, since my family needed my income.

When I again picked up the receiver, I made sure I sounded as though I were doing Mrs. Winkworth a favor. “I do have a commitment . . . but, no. I’m sure I can move that appointment to another time.”

“Oh, dear. You have something else scheduled?” Gladys sounded worried, and I felt guilty again.

“Oh, no, not at all. I have no commitments that can’t easily be change. Yes, Gladys, I will be happy to hold a séance for Mrs. Winkworth on the Saturday after next.”

“Ah! I’m so glad!”

For the first time, Gladys sounded other than confused. I guess Mrs. Winkworth was either a hard taskmistress or Gladys expected a lot of herself. I suspected the latter. She’d always been extremely precise and exacting, and if she didn’t get the highest grade on any given test, she’d fall into a deep melancholy that would last until she again excelled at something academic. That sort of thing didn’t happen often since, as noted before, Gladys had a largish brain in which she stored lots and lots of stuff that didn’t matter a whit to me.

She went on, “Thank you so much, Daisy. Mrs. Winkworth will be so pleased.”

“And I shall be very pleased to meet her.” Not to mention her grandson and Miss de la Monica. “And I look forward to seeing her house. I understand it’s quite lovely.”

“Huge,” said Gladys succinctly. “I actually get tired from all the running around I have to do, although the exercise is, I’m sure, good for me. But the gardens are quite beautiful and I do enjoy strolling in them of an evening.”

I’d just be they were. San Pasqual was one of the loveliest streets in our lovely city. “Well, it will be nice to see you again, Gladys,” I said politely, wondering if the severe, bespectacled Gladys I remembered would have changed as much as I had in the years since we’d graduated from high school.

“It will be a pleasure to see you again, too, Daisy,” she said, sounding perfunctory rather than ecstatic.

I hung up the receiver and turned to face my husband and my aunt. I expected Billy to say something cutting—he’d gone so far as to say what I did for a living was evil a time or two—but Aunt Vi beat him to the punch.

“You’re going to meet Monty Mountjoy and Lola de la Monica?” Her voice was breathy and very nearly reverent.

“I guess so. That was Gladys Pennywhistle, and she set up a séance at Mrs. Winkworth’s house for next Saturday night.”

“Oh, my dear goodness gracious sakes alive,” said Aunt Vi, sinking into her chair—she’d been standing, clutching the back of it, I guess staring in awe at my back as I spoke with Gladys on the ‘phone.

“I swear, Daisy,” said Billy, “you do get around, don’t you?”

He didn’t sound too terribly snide, so I smiled and said, “I do. And in such exalted company, too.” I wandered back to the kitchen table, wishing my helping of egg-and-potato casserole was still warm. But I ate it anyway. “Never turn down food” is my motto, which explains why I’ll never achieve the lean and boyish shape that was so fashionable in those days. My bust flattener helped my image some, but I still had hips. Couldn’t help having them without starving myself.

“Well, I guess that’s all right,” said Billy, surprising me. “It must be fun to meet all these celebrities.”

“It is, in a way, but it also makes me nervous sometimes.”

“You?” His left eyebrow lifted sardonically. I didn’t appreciate that expression on my Billy’s face. Before he’d gone off to war, he couldn’t have looked sardonic if he’d tried.

“Yes. Me. Although I must admit I’m less nervous around big shots than I might have been if I hadn’t met Harold Kincaid. He’s told me so much about so many of the so-called stars, it’s hard to keep from laughing when I meet some of them.”

“Do you think Lola de la Monica is really from Spain?” breathed Aunt Vi, who was still impressed by what she read in the papers.

“I don’t know, but I’ll ask her,” I said. “And I’ll get autographs, too, if you want them.”

Billy said, “Huh.”

But Aunt Vi said, “Oh, thank you, Daisy! I’d just love to have autographs from Monty Mountjoy and Lola de la Monica!”

It was nice to know somebody in the family appreciated me.

 

 

 

 

Alice Duncan

P.O. Box 4316

Roswell, NM 88202-4316

alice@aliceduncan.net