Message from Beyond
Belinda Joyce, a sixteen-year-old housemaid for the wealthy Hillingsworth family, rarely had the opportunity for a night out on the town. Not only did she work long hours as a domestic servant, but she also had very little money to spend on extravagances since the Hillingsworths, like most rich people, were miserly when it came to paying their employees' wages. The night the traveling carnival came to town the Hillingsworths were in New York attending a wedding, and the staff found themselves with a few hours of free time on their hands. Taking advantage of their rare night off, Belinda and Homer Dodd, the young man who maintained the family's carriages, walked to the Common to enjoy the exciting and reasonably inexpensive entertainment the show offered.
After viewing the wild animals on display, Belinda and Homer entered the large tent that housed human oddities, more commonly referred to as a freak show. The heat and humidity of the evening, in addition to the smell of unwashed bodies that crowded into the tent, made Belinda's stomach wrench. Fearing she would vomit, she excused herself and ran outside for some fresh air.
As she stood beside the rear of the tent, eyes closed, taking in long, slow breaths of cool air, she heard a low, warm chuckle beside her. Her eyes flew open and she saw a young man staring at her. His was without doubt the most handsome face she had ever seen.
"What was it, the Siamese twins or the bearded lady?" he asked, grinning widely.
"Excuse me?"
"You look a little green around the gills. I naturally assumed one of the acts inside made you feel ill. I was wondering which one it was."
"None of them. I just needed some fresh air. It was hot and crowded in there."
"Are you in a delicate condition then?"
Belinda was offended that a stranger would bring up such a private subject.
"I certainly am not! I'm an unmarried woman, sir."
The handsome stranger did not bother to point out that many a single woman found herself in the family way.
"I apologize if I inadvertently upset you. It was never my intention."
"I shouldn't even be talking to you," the maid said, remembering her mother's advice. "We have not been properly introduced."
The young man smiled, dramatically bowed and announced, "Let me rectify that. I am Schuyler Van Riper, illusionist, prestidigitator and clairvoyant extraordinaire. At your service."
"Presti-what?"
"In layman's terms, young lady, I am a magician and am currently employed by this traveling exposition. And may I now inquire as to your identity?"
"My name is Belinda Joyce," the young woman replied with a rosy pink blush. "I work as housemaid for the Hillingsworths."
"Without risking further offence, may I say that the Hillingsworths are indeed a lucky family to be graced with the presence of one so fair of face and form?"
While such comments would no doubt be deemed inappropriate in polite society, Schuyler's good-natured humor—not to mention his rakish charm and dazzling good looks—led Belinda to forgive him his impertinence.
"Well, it has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Van Riper, but I must get back to my friend. I'm sure he's beginning to wonder what's become of me."
"I'm sorry if I kept you from your young man," the magician apologized, looking crestfallen.
"Oh, no. Homer's not my young man. He's just a friend. We both work for the Hillingsworths."
Schuyler's face brightened at her explanation.
"Then let me present you with two tickets to my act, which will begin in about forty minutes."
"I don't know if we'll be here that long. We really ought to get back to the house."
"Please. I would so like to see your striking face gazing up at me from the audience."
"I'll see what Homer wants to do," she replied, immediately deciding that she would remain for the show regardless of whether Homer accompanied her or not.
* * *
Belinda returned to the carnival the next night and sat through both of Schuyler's performances. During the time between the first show and the second, the magician gave the housemaid a behind-the-scenes tour of the traveling show. As they walked among the tents and concession stands, each told the other a condensed version of his or her life story.
"What made you want to become a magician?" Belinda asked as the two shared a dish of ice cream at the concession stand.
"After my parents died in a train wreck, I was placed in an orphanage. As you can guess, it was a pretty bad time for me. But there was a group of wealthy ladies—women like your employer, I imagine—who would throw parties for the orphans during the holiday season. It was at one of these parties that I first saw Peter the Great, not the Russian ruler, but a magician. His tricks mesmerized me. More than anything in the world I wanted to know the secret behind them. Peter Lauer, who had no children of his own, took a liking to me and was able to get me released from the orphanage by offering me a job."
"As his assistant?"
"No. His wife, Minerva, was his assistant. It was my responsibility to help set up the props. But it was more than a job. The two of them were like parents to me. Minerva instructed me in literature, history and science, and Peter taught me how to perform magic tricks. Fortunately, I proved to be a good student, and he was going to put me in his act."
"Why didn't he?"
Despite the pain etched on Schuyler's handsome face, he continued.
"He was performing in Springfield one day when the theater caught fire. He ushered Minerva and me to safety and then went back to help save members of the audience. Four times he ran back into the burning building and carried terrified children to safety. The fifth time he went in the roof collapsed. A fireman had to drag him out. A beam had crushed Peter's spine; he was never able to walk again."
"I'm sorry."
"He continued to teach me until I mastered all the tricks he knew. Now I'm trying to build an act of my own—not just for myself but for Peter and Minerva as well. His medical bills ate up most of their savings, and now I try to help them out as best I can. If I could put together a better act and earn more money, I'd build a house for them and get them out of that roach-infested apartment they're living in."
"I thought your act was amazing," Belinda said with sincerity. "How could you improve it?"
"First and foremost, I need an assistant, preferably an attractive young woman, someone who can charm the audience, someone—well, like you."
"Me?"
"Yes. You'd be the perfect assistant." Schuyler contended.
"I'm afraid that's impossible," Belinda argued, looking down at her hands, which were nervously fidgeting in her lap. "Mrs. Hillingsworth would never allow it. In fact, if the family wasn't in New York right now, I wouldn't even be allowed to attend this carnival."
"Your employer doesn't own you. After all, Mr. Lincoln abolished slavery."
"I couldn't give up my job, leave my home and run off with a man who I barely know."
"No, I don't suppose you could," Schuyler said dejectedly.
But it is exactly what Belinda Joyce did. When the carnival pulled up its stakes and headed south for its next engagement, Belinda went along as Mr. Van Riper's new magic assistant.
* * *
As Schuyler had expected, Belinda proved to be a great asset to his act. Not only did she turn out to be an excellent assistant, but she also helped create exotic costumes for the characters the two of them portrayed. One was a medieval sorcerer's robe and conical hat when he performed as Merlin and she the captivating Morgan le Fay. Another was an Arabian Nights costume when he pretended to be a genii and she was Scheherazade.
As popular as his act became, however, the two always seemed to be short of money. Much of what was earned went back into the act. The ancient Egyptian costumes and mummy sarcophagus prop alone cost more than what the Van Ripers made in a week.
"I think it's time to make some changes in the act," Schuyler told his wife one night after they visited Peter and Minerva, who were still living in a shabby tenement house.
"What do you have in mind?" Belinda asked.
"I'm not sure. How about something involving mystical Chinese magic?"
"Like emperors and dragons?"
"Yeah, unless you have a better idea?" he asked.
"If we want to redesign the act with a Chinese theme, we'll need new costumes, props and scenery. That will run into a lot of money."
"But people have seen Merlin and the genii. We need to give them something new."
"Well, I've been noticing the people who come to your shows. They're working people who labor long hours for low pay. We can give them a peek into a world that's as foreign to them as China and Egypt at a much lower cost," Belinda suggested.
"Which world is that?"
"The world of the rich and upper classes. You perform your act in top hat and coattails, and I'll assist you in an evening gown with fake jewels on my neck and a paste tiara in my hair. We can save money on costumes by purchasing used ones at a theatrical supply dealer."
Schuyler smiled, leaned forward and kissed his wife on the lips.
"Meeting you was undeniably the best thing that ever happened to me."
* * *
Billing the revamped act as Lord and Lady Townley's Magical Revue, Schuyler not only appealed to a working class audience but he was eventually able to book the magic act into some of the finest venues in America. In fact, in less than a decade, Lord Townley became the most acclaimed magician in the country, if not the entire world.
When the money came pouring in, Schuyler bought a second house not far from his own and moved Peter and his wife into it. He also hired a woman to help Minerva around the house.
"I can never thank you enough for all you've done for us," a teary-eyed Peter cried, gripping Schuyler's hand in gratitude.
"It's I who ought to thank you," the younger man protested. "You took me out of that dreadful orphanage, gave me a home and taught me a trade. You were like a father to me."
"I wanted to adopt you," Peter admitted, "but the administrator at the orphanage wouldn't allow it. She claimed being a magician wasn't a steady job. I wasn't allowed to adopt you, but I could at least offer you employment, which was what I did."
Schuyler was deeply touched by the magician's confession. While a piece of paper would not have made Peter a better father, the fact that his mentor had wanted to legally adopt him meant a good deal to the young man.
Sadly, the Lauers were in their new home for only eighteen months, when Peter suffered a fatal heart attack. Schuyler was performing in Atlantic City where he received word of the elderly magician's death. He and Belinda cancelled the week's performances and hurried home.
Although he was devastated by his mentor's passing, Schuyler hid his own feelings and attempted to comfort the widow.
"You needn't worry," he assured her. "I'll always take care of you."
"You'll do no such thing," Minerva insisted. "I'm going to go to California to live with my sister. She lost her husband a few years back. It seems right that two old widows take care of each other."
"Well, rest assured that if there's anything either of you need, you have only to contact me."
Minerva embraced him as though he were her true son.
* * *
It wasn't long after Peter's funeral that Schuyler began having trouble sleeping.
"You work too hard," Belinda suggested. "Maybe you need a vacation."
"I'd rather keep busy," her husband replied. "It helps to take my mind off ...."
Schuyler did not need to finish his sentence to convey his thoughts to his wife.
"That's why you can't sleep. You haven't come to terms with Peter's death yet. You avoid thinking about it during the day, so these unresolved emotions plague your dreams."
"Thank you, Mrs. Freud, for your insightful evaluation," Schuyler teased.
"I'm just trying to help."
"I know that, and I realize Peter is gone, but I can't help feeling that, in a way, he's still here."
Belinda was immediately intrigued.
"Do you think he might be trying to contact you from beyond the grave?"
While his wife believed in spiritualism, Schuyler had never given the matter much thought.
"If the dead could speak to the living, why didn't my parents try to reach out to me after they died?" he asked logically.
"Maybe they needed an intermediary, a medium, in order to speak to you."
"Do you think Peter might be able to communicate with me if I contacted a spiritualist?" Schuyler asked hopefully.
"It wouldn't hurt to try."
The following month the Van Ripers visited the home of Madame Luminita, a renowned spiritualist who claimed to have "spoken" with Thomas Jefferson, two of Henry VIII's wives, one of the condemned Salem witches and Cleopatra's brother/husband, Ptolemy XIII. The woman attributed her uncanny psychic abilities to her ancestry, claiming to have come from Romania, the last in a long line of gypsies.
"There is a thin veil between this world and the next," Madame Luminita said in an indistinguishable European accent, which one moment sounded Russian and another sounded German. "I cannot always hear the whispers of those on the other side, but sometimes the dead scream to be heard. Such is the case with your friend, Peter."
"Why is he so anxious to speak to me?" Schuyler asked skeptically.
"All I can make out is one word: house."
"My husband bought Peter and his wife a house not far from our own," Belinda said, sincerely believing the medium had actually heard Peter's voice.
"Of course, I would be able to communicate with him much better if I went into a trance."
The magician, eyes narrowing with suspicion, asked, "And what precisely do you charge for this service?"
A tall, intimidating man—presumably the gypsy's husband—answered on his wife's behalf.
"It is one hundred dollars for a spiritualist session with Madame Luminita."
"That's quite a bit of money just to relay a message," Schuyler laughed.
"This is not Western Union," the husband objected. "Very few people can penetrate the boundary between life and death, and those that can find it an arduous process. My wife is often drained of energy for days after such an attempt."
Like many mourners, Schuyler wished he had had the opportunity to say goodbye to the man he loved. He wanted more than anything to tell Peter what a tremendous difference he made in his life. If there was any possibility that Schuyler could convey this message through Madame Luminita, the price would be well worth it. Without further protest, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. Belinda smiled with anticipation as her husband counted out five twenty dollar bills and handed them to the gypsy's husband.
Madame Luminita closed her eyes, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, her body relaxed and slumped back in her chair as though she were asleep.
"I am trying to contact Peter Lauer," she said in a monotonous, emotionless voice. "Peter, where are you? I am here with Schuyler Van Riper. Do you have anything you'd like to say to him?"
Suddenly, the gypsy's body stiffened, and she abruptly sat upright in her chair as though she were a marionette and an unseen puppeteer had pulled her strings.
"Schuyler," Madame Luminita intoned in a voice more masculine than feminine and with no trace of her previous accent.
"Peter?" Belinda cried excitedly. "Is that really you?"
"Hello, Belinda. I'm glad you're here with your husband."
"Have you been trying to contact me, old friend?" Schuyler asked, silently praying that he was not being played for a fool.
"Yes. I never really got to tell you how grateful I was when you bought me that house."
"As I recall, you thanked me at great length."
"Not great enough. No one had ever been as good to me as you. I don't know what Minerva and I would have done without you. By the way, why isn't Minerva with you? She's not ill, is she?"
"She's just fine," Belinda jumped in. "She's living with her sister now, out in California."
"That's good. I'm glad she's not alone."
"Is that all you wanted to say to me?" Schuyler asked, disappointed. "Was there nothing else?"
"Yes, there is. I ...."
Then, Madame Luminita's body slumped back in her chair, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
"Peter? Are you there? Peter?" Schuyler called.
The medium's eyes slowly fluttered open. It took several moments for her to focus on her surroundings. When she tried to stand up, she swooned. Thankfully her husband was there to steady her.
"What happened?" Schuyler demanded to know. "Where's Peter?"
"My wife is exhausted. She needs to rest."
"But Peter had something to tell my husband," Belinda argued.
"Madame Luminita is too weak to go into a trance now. You must come back at the end of the week, and she will try again."
On their carriage ride home, the Van Ripers argued about the authenticity of their session with Madame Luminita.
"Wasn't it a bit too convenient that she came out of trance without really giving us much information?" Schuyler asked.
"But what she did give us was accurate," Belinda argued. "How could she have known about the house?"
"You told Madame Luminita yourself that I bought one for Peter."
"Only after she mentioned Peter wanted to talk to you about a house."
"It's a common enough word. She could have been fishing. If we didn't respond to house, she might have then said will or book—anything we could remotely associate with Peter."
Belinda became exasperated by her husband's stubborn cynicism in the face of what she believed to be concrete proof.
"Even if she was fishing with the word house—and I don't believe she was—how could she have known about Minerva? Neither of us mentioned Peter's wife."
"I don't know," Schuyler reluctantly confessed. "Maybe she can read our minds."
"You and I both know mind-reading is fake. We've done it ourselves as part of our act. I know I didn't give Madame Luminita any coded message, and I'm sure you didn't either."
"All right, I admit the experience might have been authentic, but I'm not completely sold. I'll reserve my judgment until I learn a little more about Madame Luminita."
* * *
Schuyler had never been to a private detective before and, therefore, had not known what to expect. Clive Gower, it turned out, was a retired policeman who had been involved in investigating and solving several major crimes in the city. For a reasonable fee—much more reasonable than the one Madame Luminita charged—the detective was able to find the information his client sought.
"Your Madame Luminita," Clive informed the magician, "is no gypsy from Romania. She was born Wilma Stebbins in Newark, New Jersey. She wanted to be an actress on the Broadway stage but wound up doing a fortuneteller act in Coney Island instead. Once she'd established herself as Madame Luminita, she left New York, and, aided by her new husband, she set up shop here as a spiritualist medium."
"So she is a fake?" Schuyler asked.
"Definitely."
"I thought as much, but I still don't understand how she knew about Peter's wife."
"Don't underestimate those two. They're good at what they do. You called her for an appointment a few days before you actually saw her, right?"
"Yes. I had to wait more than a week before meeting with her."
"You must have given her your name and told her why you wanted to see her."
"Yes," Schuyler said with a sigh, embarrassed at having played right into the unscrupulous woman's hands. "And I told her about Peter having recently died."
"Once she had the names, she had a week in which to find out about you and Peter."
"Why go through all the expense? She couldn't be certain I'd be willing to pay for her services."
"There's not much expense involved if she has access to the newspaper archives. She probably had to look no further than your friend Peter's obituary."
"How could they be so despicable as to exploit the grief of people who lost their loved ones? Is it really worth the hundred dollars she charges?"
Clive laughed at Schuyler's naiveté.
"You don't honestly believe it would have stopped with one session? That pair would have had you coming back again and again. I once knew a woman who lost her daughter. She went to a spiritualist every month until the day she died. Spent damn near her whole life's savings, too."
"Can I press charges against this fraud?"
"You can, but it's a hard case to prove. A lot of people believe the living can speak to the dead."
"Then I will discredit Wilma Stebbins in the press—and not only her," Schuyler vowed angrily. "I will make it my mission to root out these bogus mediums and expose spiritualism for the lie it is."
* * *
Over the next twelve years, Schuyler Van Riper, with the assistance of his wife and Clive Gower, uncovered more than fifty scam artists who milked grieving parents, inconsolable spouses and other bereaved individuals out of their hard-earned dollars. Soon his reputation for exposing phony mediums was rivaled only by his fame as a skilled magician.
One evening before a performance at the Los Angeles Orpheum, Schuyler held a press conference at the Hotel Hollywood to announce that he was going to produce a film about the legendary French magician Robert-Houdin.
"No expense will be spared on this project," he boasted. "While we haven't hired anyone yet, I would like D.W. Griffith or Cecil B. DeMille to direct the picture. Furthermore, Lon Chaney, Wallace Reid and Lionel Barrymore have all expressed an interest in playing the title role."
After listening to several questions about the upcoming biographical film posed by his fellow members of the Los Angeles press, one reporter asked, "Now that you're becoming involved in the motion picture business, does this mean you'll give up your crusade against spiritualism?"
"Not at all!" Schuyler assured him. "I shall continue that noble pursuit until the day I die." The magician looked at his wife who was sitting in the back of the room, smiling at him encouragingly, and—ever the showman—added, "In fact, if at all possible, I will continue fighting this battle from beyond the grave."
Reporters rose from their seats, all shouting questions in an attempt to be heard above their colleagues. Meanwhile, flash cubes lit the room like a strobe light as photographers snapped pictures of the magician.
"How do you intend to do that?" one reporter asked.
"My wife and I made a pact. We've selected a message that only the two of us know. When one dies, the other will issue an open invitation to all mediums to prove spiritualism is genuine. If one of these mediums can tell the survivor what that secret message is, he or she will receive the princely sum of one million dollars. Not only that, but he or she will prove beyond a doubt that communication between this world and the next is possible."
Belinda, who was seated next to Clive Gower, smiled, but it was as though the muscles of her face were frozen. She and her husband had never made any such arrangement; however, she correctly assumed they were soon about to make one.
* * *
The movie depicting the life of Robert-Houdin was never to be made since the principal financial backer and driving force behind it died before the script was completed. Schuyler Van Riper, also known as Lord Townley, regarded as the undisputed king of magic, died in his sleep of an undiagnosed illness, leaving Belinda a widow.
A week after the magician was buried with all the pomp and circumstance due one of the world's most beloved entertainers, Belinda met with several hundred men and women, all claiming they could contact her late husband. Some of these mediums went into trances as the disgraced Madame Luminita had done; others came equipped with Ouija boards or similar spiritualistic props. One woman claimed she could contact Schuyler simply by holding an object that belonged to him.
Within a year of her husband's passing, however, Belinda began to buckle under the strain.
"I'm exhausted," she confessed to Clive Gower who, after years of working for Schuyler, became a close, personal friend of the magician and his wife.
"Then stop all this séance nonsense!"
"I made Schuyler a promise," Belinda argued. "Although I don't think either of us realized how many psychics, clairvoyants and mystics we would have to deal with."
"With a million dollars in the offing," Clive laughed, "every nut with a crystal ball or a deck of tarot cards is going to come out of the woodwork."
"Well, I can't stop, but I can slow down."
"That's the answer. Why don't you limit your meetings with spiritualists to one or two days a month?"
Belinda frowned. Even twice a month was too frequent.
"I was thinking more along the lines of once a year, maybe on Schuyler's birthday or on the anniversary of his death."
Thus began the tradition that would eventually rival Mexico's Day of the Dead in its celebration of death and the afterlife.
* * *
Belinda needed the assistance of her maid to put on the sequined evening gown she was to wear on the fiftieth anniversary of her husband's death. Her health failing, the elderly widow decided that she would no longer meet with mediums after that evening.
As the young maid fastened a string of pearls around the old woman's neck, she confessed, "I'm going to miss these annual séances. They're like a great big Halloween party. Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. It is the day your husband died, after all."
"Don't worry, my dear. I quite agree with you. I sometimes feel like I should hand out trick-or-treat candy."
"There you are, ma'am. All ready for your grand entrance."
Belinda looked at her reflection in the mirror, seeing not the white-haired woman whose face was ravaged by age, but a pretty young girl who fell in love with a handsome stranger she met at a carnival.
"You know, I was once a maid myself," she told her employee. "I worked for the Hillingsworths, a very rich and socially prominent family."
As she turned away from the mirror she thought of all the people who had come and gone in her life: Peter the Great, his wife Minerva, her good friend Clive Gower and, most importantly, Schuyler Van Riper.
Suitably attired, Belinda stepped into the ballroom of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to thunderous applause. A band, usually heard on a late night talk show began playing a rendition of Tony Orlando's "Knock Three Times" while television cameras followed her progress as she walked to the raised dais and sat at a table in front of four ten-foot-high posters of her late husband. An Emmy-winning actor, who was currently hosting a televised horror anthology, acted as master of ceremonies. His first duty was to welcome Belinda and his second was to introduce an officer of the Bank of America who carried an oversized cardboard check for one million dollars. The banker reminded Belinda of Ed McMahon awarding the jackpot for the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.
Preliminaries over, a motley assortment of characters lined up for a chance to win the reward. One after another, the mediums conveyed a message, supposedly from Schuyler. One woman quoted writer George Elliot ("Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them") while another chose Poe ("The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"). Nearly all the other people chose words from the Bible or great religious leaders.
No one got it right.
"And there you have it, ladies and gentleman," the emcee announced after the last of the contenders was sent away without the million dollar check. "After fifty years, no one has succeeded in providing proof that communication with the dead is possible. On behalf of our television network, I want to thank the gracious Belinda Van Riper for allowing us to take part in ...."
The emcee stopped speaking when a young boy stepped out of the crowd and mounted the dais. One of the security guards attempted to stop him, but Belinda raised her hand.
"Let him come up here," she said.
As the boy drew nearer, the elderly woman was touched by his cherubic beauty. His was a face Gainsborough might have immortalized in oils.
"What do you want, child?" she asked gently.
The boy walked up to her and, just inches away, said in a low voice, "I shall but love thee better after death."
Belinda felt as though the walls of the ballroom were closing in on her. It was not the high-pitched voice of a child but the deep voice of a grown man. It was a voice she knew well despite the fifty years that had passed since she had last heard it.
"W-what d-did you s-say?" she sputtered.
"I quoted the last line of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43. You remember it, don't you?" The angelic child then leaned forward and whispered in the old woman's ear, "My dearest Belinda, all those years I lived under the delusion that I was crusading against false spiritualists, but in truth I was actually searching for one who was genuine."
Belinda's heart raced. She closed her eyes and fought back the tears of joy at hearing the long-awaited words she and her husband had chosen more than five decades earlier. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the small child vanish into the crowd. He had not bothered to collect the check.
* * *
The maid prepared a bath and took the old woman's nightgown out of her suitcase.
"Would you like some tea or hot cocoa before you turn in, ma'am?" she asked.
"No, thank you," Belinda replied distractedly.
"Are you feeling all right?" the maid asked with concern.
"I'm just tired."
"Well, you get some sleep then, and I'll see you in the morning."
The maid turned off the lamp, shut the door and went to her own room where, after bathing, she curled up in bed with an Agatha Christie mystery. When she checked in on her employer shortly after midnight, she discovered that the elderly widow had died in her sleep.
The maid wept with grief; she would miss her kindhearted, generous employer. However, she took some comfort in the smile that appeared on Belinda Van Riper's serene and still beautiful face. Her passing had apparently been a peaceful one.
This story was inspired by the great Harry Houdini, who created a secret message to share with his wife in the event in the event that communication with the dead was possible.
When I was learning magic (before I learned to walk), I failed in my first attempt to make Salem disappear.
