Elizabeth Byrd was a successful journalist and historical novelist (a side note: her best-known book, “Immortal Queen,” is one of my favorite novels.) She also had a deep interest in reincarnation and other supernatural matters (one of her non-fiction works was titled, “The Ghosts in My Life.”) In 1964, the New York paper “The Villager” published her account of an experiment with a Ouija board. Usually, such dabblings lead to either complete failure or regrettable encounters with dark spirits, but in this case, the board signaled a future happy ending. That atypical nature of Byrd’s story made it, I thought, worth sharing.
I still recommend avoiding Ouija boards, however.
I walked along Gay Street last week, that tiny curving street that cuddles in the heart of Greenwich Village. Little has changed since I lived there twenty-one years ago. The rows of small houses built in the early nineteenth century are still curtained in organdy frills or primly shuttered. There is an aura of age as subtle as the scent of woodruff. Cars rarely pass on this secretive little street, but when they do, you envision coaches on cobblestones. And on frosty nights, you smell oak and applewood from the still-burning fireplaces of long ago.
But it was spring when I passed by. An old horse pulled a flower cart. There were geraniums, mimosa--and great bunches of lilac.
Because of the lilac, I thought of Dandy and the ghost and wondered if the present tenants of Number Thirteen Gay Street were mischiefed by a little French poodle or had found lilacs in the garden where no lilacs grew. Of course, I couldn’t barge in on strangers and ask such absurd questions; but I lingered outside my old home and remembered how it had all happened....
I had moved into the basement apartment when my husband went to war in 1943. My floor-through included a rear garden which I shared with Virginia Copeland, the girl above. By the unwritten code of New York neighbors, we didn’t intrude on one another. Months went by before we met.
From the desk at my window, I could see Virginia in the garden with a miniature French poodle whom she called “Dandy.” I thought the name suited him, for he was a cocky, prancy, elegant little dog in a curly black coat that was fashionably trimmed. He had a black button nose, plump whiskers, and velvety brown eyes. Often he clowned with blown leaves or played with sun shadows, but I noticed he never barked except to welcome Virginia home. He never even barked when her doorbell or telephone rang--which wasn’t often. She was blonde, beautiful, sad-looking, solitary.
One night, Dandy scratched on my garden door and summoned me up to her apartment. He didn’t bark but his anxiety was evident. She met me at the garden steps--our first meeting--and I saw that she had been crying. It is difficult for a reticent person to pour out the story of an unhappy marriage and a divorce, yet Virginia needed someone to talk to. So we became close friends, she and Dandy and I.
Two years passed. One windy April night, just for fun, Virginia brought up her old Ouija board from the basement, and we began to ask it questions. Dandy watched us intently and his concentration was so comic that we both laughed.
I asked Ouija, “Will Virginia marry again?”
Under our fingers the planchette moved to YES. “What’s the man’s name?” she asked. The planchette moved to CAP. “Are those his initials?” I asked. No answer.
We varied the question but nothing happened. Finally, relinquishing Cap, Virginia asked if she would stay in New York.
The planchette moved firmly to NO. PHIL.
We asked if she would live in Philadelphia. NO. Where, then?
“Man--PHIL,” Ouija answered.
So the man is named Phil?” I asked.
No reply.
Virginia laughed. “It’s clear as mud,” she said. “I’m going to marry Cap and live with Phil. A wicked life, but busy...”
So we joked and had coffee and talked about other matters. The wind rose to a gale, unusual for April, and the little house shuddered and creaked. Dandy put his paw onto the garden door and Virginia let him out, leaving the door open. Suddenly we heard him bark and he ran in to us, still barking--the exultant, welcoming sort of bark with which he greeted her when she’d been away. He seemed to be urging something--someone--into the room. Just as he had urged me to follow him two years before. His guest had apparently followed him over to the fireplace and was standing there. Dandy reared up on his hind legs and placed his front paws on its--what? Trousers, I thought. Dandy’s pink tongue seemed to lick an outstretched hand.
“He must see a bug or a fly,” Virginia said. But there were no insects on this windy April night. Later we agreed we both had the strongest illusion that a man was standing by the fireplace, relaxed, at ease, at home.
Then Dandy escorted his guest out the door, returned to Virginia and fluffed at her feet. There were shreds of blossoms on his curly coat and at the garden door--undoubtedly lilac. But it was impossible, for lilac did not grow anywhere on Gay Street; and neither of us had lilac in our vases. The mystery charmed us but we soon forgot it. In May, we gave a cocktail party in the garden, and Dandy officiated as host, extending his usual silent welcome, offering a paw to friends. Suddenly he tore past us and made a flying leap onto a young man, who dropped a parcel and caught Dandy in his arms. For a moment two dark heads lay together, two faces pressed. The man’s face was wet with kisses.
Virginia, startled by the bark, stared incredulously at Dandy in the man’s arms, and then at the fallen parcel. It had broken, and a huge bunch of lilacs spilled out. A friend introduced the young man as Major Capotosto.
“Everyone calls me Cappy,” he said, and gave Virginia the lilacs.
Virginia moved through the party in a radiant daze. Later she dined with Cappy and much later that night she knocked on my door. “Guess where he plans to live?”
“Philadelphia,” I said.
“Manila. Philippines. Remember what Ouija said? MAN - PHIL.”
So Cappy was the Gay Street ghost. He and Virginia have been married seventeen happy years. She wrote me: “Dandy lies buried here in our garden where wild orchids trail over his grave. But lilacs would be more suitable. I wish I could grow them here in Manila . . . .”
So last week, as I passed down Gay Street and saw lilacs on a flower cart, I remembered Dandy and the “ghost” and I paused outside number thirteen, tempted to ring my old doorbell. But what could I say to strangers, to whom the story would probably be ridiculous? Yet, impulsively, I rang the bell. Florence Mitchel, a dark, attractive young actress answered, accompanied by Misty, her French poodle. She was gracious when I explained my pilgrimage into the past and asked me in. Mindful of Virginia I asked who lived upstairs, and she took me to meet Alice Mulligan.
“How is the garden doing?” I asked Mrs. Mulligan. “Can you grow lilacs now?”
“You can’t grow anything,” she said. “Not inside, either.”
She showed me a row of lifeless plants on her potting table in the kitchen. “Except this.”
She pointed to a miniature orange tree. “It’s supposed to be perishable but it blooms on, year after year. It’s called Calamondin. And it’s native only to the Philippines.”
