The Spiritualist Read Online Free PDF

and new. I’m Mr. Graff’s daughter.”
    He swept off his hat and gave me a little bow. “Mr. Peter Atherton, at your service, miss. I’ve come to see your father. I don’t have an appointment, unfortunately, but I had hoped he could spare me a few moments.”
    I gave him my most charming smile. “I’m sure I can persuade him to make time for you, sir.”
    “I’ve no doubt that if anyone could do it, it would be you.”
    I rose, wishing I’d worn one of my better gowns instead of the tartan wool, which was at least two years old, and conscious of my every move as I eased my skirts—which were not quite wide enough to be fashionable—past the table that served as my desk. I knocked briefly on my father’s door. At his grunted “What is it, Evie?” I pushed it open and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind me, and said breathlessly,
    “There’s a Mr. Peter Atherton to see you, Papa.”
    He glanced up. His eyes were rheumy behind his glasses, and because of it many had been deceived—to their detriment—into thinking he had poor eyesight as well. But Joseph Charles Graff was an acutely observant man, which was why he was so much in demand as an investigator.
    “Atherton?”
    “Yes.”
    My father gave me a shrewd look. “Don’t keep him waiting then, Evie. Let him in.”
    Peter hired Papa that day to help him investigate one of his cases, and after that, he came more and more often, and I dared to think it was due as much to me as to my father’s competence. I didn’t think I was imagining the sparkle in his eyes as he came through the door, and after that first time, he never failed to bring some small thing for me: a flower picked from the window box of some stoop he’d passed, a lovely bright orange, a ribbon. I dared my father’s glowering looks in my attempts to make Peter smile and laugh—he had a good laugh, one that seemed to fill the very corners of the room. As time passed, I found I truly liked him, and the weeks when he didn’t come filled me with terror; I began to imagine that each visit would be his last, that he would find some woman of his own class and forget all about me.
    Papa sighed over me at dinner. “Our girl’s got herself in a state again today.”
    As Mama sipped her laudanum-laced tea, she said, “Might as well try for an English duke, Evie, as that son.”
    I was taken aback. “Really, Mama!”
    Papa grunted skeptically. “Your mama’s right. You keep your distance. And keep your head. He’s an Atherton.”
    “You talk as if we’re not good enough for them,” I said, stung. “The Graffs are respectable tradesmen. You’ve said it often yourself. You’ve said we have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not as if we live in the Bowery.”
    Papa pointed to the framed landscape on the wall. “You see that lithograph?”
    “Of course.”
    “You know what’s on his walls, Evie? The original, that’s what. The Athertons are Knickerbockers—from the Faubourg St. Germain set. You stay away from what’s so far beyond you. It’ll only lead to misery.”
    “You told me the world was changing,” I said. “You said I was good enough for anyone.”
    “The world hasn’t changed that much. You keep to your place.”
    “My place,” I said bitterly. “What’s that, Papa? What were my studies for if not to use my mind for something better?”
    He glanced at Mama, who would not meet his gaze. “I’ve come to think perhaps your mama was right about that. Perhaps I’ve done you a disservice.”
    His betrayal nearly made me cry. “Oh, I see. So I’m to marry Clancy Owen and spend my life having babies until I’m half mad with boredom like—” I broke off as my mother glanced blandly up at me.
    Papa gave me a warning look.
    “It’s not right to want what you can’t have, Evie,” Mama said.
    But I did want Peter. I couldn’t help it. And I thought he wanted me too. He began coming to the house a few evenings a week, his eyes glittering with admiration as we