A Bloodsmoor Romance (100 page)

Would once again arouse a spirit strife,

And wake my marble heart once more to life.

Ask me not then to toil for wealth, and fame,

But touch my heart with sweet affection's name!

THUS, MR. BASIL MILLER
concluded his poignant reading of that remarkable document, “The Confession of a Penurious Sinner,” from the pen of Miss Edwina Kidde­master, deceased: and I am not able to convey, in the frail apparatus of words, the atmosphere of tearful release, that reigned supreme in the Golden Oak room!—save to say that not an individual remained
unmov'd;
and there were one or two, whose lives were permanently alter'd.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

B
efore proceeding with my story, and leaping ahead to that hour, but a few days later, when, beneath that very same roof, the magnanimous Deirdre made her pronouncement (as to the
equal distribution
of her new-gained wealth, amongst her family), there is a small correction that should be made, for the benefit of the scholarly reader.

A minor, and, I think, a not very significant fact: that that song known to thousands of music-loving Americans, as Schubert's “Adieu! 'Tis Love's Last Greeting,” was not from the pen of that composer at all—but from that of one
August Heinrich von Weyrauch,
of whom, I am afraid, very few of us have heard; tho' doubtless, considering his name, we should judge him a compatriot of Herr Schubert.

This error, I should hasten to explain, was not Edwina Kidde­master's alone, but a general error, amongst the publishers of sheet music, and the enthusiastic but untutor'd public.
Schubert
being famous, and
von Weyrauch
sadly unknown, it seems a comprehensible error, and one of no great import: so I hope that those readers of skeptical persuasion, of whom, I suppose, there are some, will not consider it an ironical note, in the midst of the deceased Edwina's noble pathos. For it is the
sentiment
of romance, and not the
precisian's exactitude,
that moves our hearts.

SEVENTY-EIGHT

I
t was on a balmy April Sunday, but a week past Easter, that, at tea time, Deirdre rose to make her historic pronouncement, her once-pallid cheeks now flushed with warmth, and her darksome eyes shining with a pleasure almost girlish: she rose, and lifted her lovely proud head, and all in the room grew silent at once, in anticipation of her words.

Yet she was shy!—
she,
the new mistress of Kidde­master Hall, and the inheritrix of such incalculable wealth!—so that, at the very first, her voice quavered, and she was obliged to grip quite tightly her crimson silk-and-sandalwood fan.

“It is my wish”—Deirdre spoke—“of which a few individuals have already been informed, that my unlook'd-to good fortune not reside with me alone: for such, I cannot think, would have been the ultimate wish, of my deceased mother”—and here the greatly moved young lady paused, her eyes visibly moistening, and it was some seconds before she could continue—“my deceased mother, whose words, and whose model, have so powerfully impressed upon us all, the merit of Christian charity, and Christian love. That I might once, in my ignorance and self-absorption, have
imagin
'
d
injustice, and prejudice, and cruelty, and ill-will, and despair, and the minor sorts of failings—a niggardliness of spirit, an inappropriate jealousy, simple mockery—in the very midst of my adopted home, and, indeed, in the world in general, is a measure of my own blindness, of which I am now asham'd. Spite!—envy!—jeering glances, and curled lips!—revulsion for one's very
being,
on this earth: all this is not very flattering to me, when, at the present time, I cast my thoughts back, and realize that
my own
penury of spirit gave substance to these fancies, or, it may be, too energetically seized upon some small provocation, in the world, that, to feed my bitter heart, might then be exaggerated. For this troublesome imperfection in myself,
I
must beg
your
forgiveness: and pray that the past's negligible shadows might be forgot, in order that the greater share, which resided in sunshine, may, in memory, the more vividly define itself.”

Deirdre then paused but a moment, her lovely bright eyes moving about the room, to rest upon the sympathetic and enthused countenances, that, in nearly every instance, were turned to her, as blooms to the April sun: and, taking heart from these encouraging expressions, and from some slow-gathering sense of her rightful significance (and, it may have been, from a modest—nay, reluctant—admission of her own healthsome beauty, the which had been skillfully enhanced, at her morning toilette, by Malvinia, whose practic'd and affectionate fingers had, once again, fashioned a most becoming hair style: a French chignon, its severity prettified by tight curls and loose, even languid, ringlets): taking heart too, we may assume, by her increasing sense that her mother
would certainly
have concurred,
did in fact concur,
as if her spirit dwelt in this very room!—she drew breath, and spoke more firmly, the while a girlish smile played about her finely sculpted lips: “It is my wish, then, which I have been encouraged to think, by Cousin Basil, is not only
just,
but, even more significant, to the law!—
practicable,
that I assign to him, and to his associates, the considerable responsibility of assessing my inheritance, that it might, as soon as is reasonably possible, be
divided equally
amongst myself, and those six persons closest to me: my dear parents, and my sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Zinn to constitute, as is only proper,
two
persons; and Mr. Philippe Fox, in his role as agent for Constance Philippa, to be allowed such share, as, were she present in the East, my eldest sister would then receive.”

Tho', as Deirdre had indicated, one or two persons—amongst them Malvinia—knew beforehand, of the substance of this announcement, and tho' it would not have required an intelligence of great acumen, to anticipate, from various smiles and hints of Cousin Basil, that some very magnanimous—nay, queenly—disclosure was to be made, this little speech of Deirdre's was greeted with so stunned, and so gladsome, a general response, as to make the representation of it, in the chill rigors of prose, quite impossible! Imagine instead, if you will, a Bloodsmoor spring sickl'd over with the pale remnants of winter's snow, beneath a sombre and oppressive sky, ponderous with clouds: imagine, then, the first peepings of those lovely flowers known as
snowdrops,
forcing their valiant way through the cruel-crust'd earth: and then, of a sudden, the sun!—the sun!—bursting wide, and scattering the ill-visagèd clouds, to transform with his manly virility the very world itself, from horizon to horizon: but shining most significantly upon those selfsame
snowdrops,
that had, perhaps, registered some doubt, as to whether they had proceeded into the world with unwise precipitousness, and might have been preordained for a snowy death, and a snowy burial! But now my own words are inadequate; and I must give over, to one of the masters of our native poesy, Mr. Longfellow, who, in “The Lily and the Rose,” illumines a scene not unlike the one I have painted, and concludes, in regard to the flowers with their “light and soullike wings”—

And with childlike, credulous affection,

We behold their tender buds expand;

Emblems of our own great resurrection,

Emblems of the bright and better land!

—and thus indeed it was, upon that momentous occasion in the history of the Kidde­masters, when all eyes without exception flooded with tears, and, at the last, the breathless young inheritrix
was
so moved, she turned aside weeping, to be crushed in an embrace by Octavia, and passionately admonished: “Oh, you are too good!—too good!—it is not deserved!—it is too generous!—our hearts will break!”

SEVENTY-NINE

A
h, how passionately I should like to conclude
A Bloodsmoor Romance
upon this gladsome note, our heroine's Kidde­master blood belatedly, but trenchantly, triumphing over her plebeian inclinations!—with, in fact, a sisterly embrace, all the more emotional, in that Deirdre and Octavia are not
sisters,
but
cousins:
the which relationship, as we have seen, is, in this particular context, a very special one indeed.

(Nor was the tearful Octavia the only sister to rush to Deirdre, to fold her in an embrace: the pale-lipped and trembling Malvinia also approached, as did the flushing, o'erjoyed Samantha; and, tho' he held himself at the periphery of the circle, for some minutes, Mr. Philippe Fox finally approached Deirdre as well, to offer her a vigorous, and very warm, handshake, and to thank her vehemently, in Constance Philippa's place, “for her Christian—nay, preternatural—munificence.”)

Or, if it would strike the reader's sensibility as too abrupt, to consummate my history at this point, teatime of April 26, 1899, what a pleasure it would be, to do nothing more taxing than to leap sunnily ahead, and transcribe merely the felicitous events that lie in wait: the vast contentment enjoy'd by Samantha, and her devoted Nahum, and their several children, as a consequence of Deirdre's generosity; the flower-bedecked wedding of Malvinia and her faithful Malcolm Kennicott, in late September, in our historic old Trinity Church; the surprise betrothal of Octavia and the genial Sean McInnes, that tall, craggy-featur'd, red-haired Irishman, of whom it was said, by Octavia's family, that he behaved with as much natural dignity, as if he were an Anglo-Saxon. (It quite won their hearts, that Sean should so clearly adore his young stepson Lucius Quincy: a subdued, slender-framed, but gay-spirited child, whose infant's blond hair was gradually darkening to a fine burnished red-brown: so that, one day, well before his teens, the
step
son might possess certain of the attributes of a
son,
quite by happenstance!)

Nor should I shrink from delineating certain of the remarkable changes undergone by Mrs. Zinn: the most defiant, perhaps, being her employment, as Mrs. Abba Goold Woolson's sponsor and aide, in the Ladies' Dress Reform Movement, of her
maiden name!
—as if she were but
Prudence Kidde­master,
after so many fruitful decades, and never
Mrs. John Quincy Zinn.
Yet her stubbornness, and her perversity, were such that, despite her station, she insisted upon being known as
Miss Kidde­master,
or even
Prudence!
(To her shame, Prudence was to be one of some seventy-five Dress Reform and Suffragette persons, arrested on Boston Common, for illicit marching, picketing, and demonstrating, in support of the futile “candidacy for President of the United States,” of one of their number—this campaign undertaken despite the fact that the female sex
had not the privilege of the vote!
Was there ever a more foolish, and a more vainglorious, occupation? Prudence was seventy-six years old at the time of her arrest, in November of 1899, yet, when the examining magistrate sought to dismiss charges against her, that she might return home safely to her
husband,
her
children,
and her
grandchildren,
she vociferously protested, saying that her “home” was with her comrades in the movement: and if that meant jail, why then, jail it must be. “We are prepared,” Prudence declared, “for all you can exact from us.”)

Nor would I find it o'erly distasteful, tho' certainly it would be a sorrowful undertaking, to provide the reader with some small sense, of the mingled bitterness, and triumph, and frustration, and worry, and turmoil, and gratification, and puzzlement, to be endur'd by John Quincy Zinn: in part, because of his belovèd wife's defection; but more as a consequence of his still-deepening obsession with his work. (For the poor man took little pleasure, in his adopted daughter's generosity, feeling it, perhaps, no more than his due; and he seemed to know by instinct that he had but an abbreviated time to live—and to perfect, for future generations of Americans, the elusive principle of the
perpetual-motion machine.
)

Nor, I suppose, would it be entirely repugnant to me, to address myself to the predicament of the young heiress Deirdre Zinn: for, after several weeks, when the flurried excitement of the bequest had somewhat abated, she could not blind herself to the great paradox of her existence,
which suitor to accept.
(That other eligible bachelors were beginning to present themselves, not excluding certain Kidde­master cousins, and Basil Miller himself!—does not concern us here, since it did not concern our heroine. Indeed, she cast a gaily sardonic eye upon these gentlemen, inquiring as to whether they sought
her,
or her
mother's daughter,
for a bride.) “Your newfound wealth, and your newfound station in society, do, I confess, gravely intimidate me,” the noble-brow'd Dr. Stoughton said, bending a resolute gaze upon Deirdre, “yet, I am bound to say, no more than your beauty, and grace of person, of old.” Thus Dr. Lionel Stoughton: and now hear the swarthy-skinned Hassan Agha, in
his
petition!

“In these wondrously-alter'd circumstances of yours, my dear Deirdre, you will require, more than ever, a
husband,
” Mr. Agha declared, in a low importunate voice, his eyes slyly shining. “A
husband,
moreover, who is not so lily-livered, as to be uxorious; nor so much of the rank and privilege of old society, as to commandeer your fortune, and you. Come, then, let us make an agreement at once:
will
you be my bride? My headstrong Lolo!”

Was there ever so bold, so vain, so impetuous a creature?

Possessed of the Indian cobra's eerie stealth, and the tiger's hot-gleaming eyes, with small even teeth, white as ivory, bared in a sensual smile: a complexion of amazing smoothness, yet olive-dark, and oft tinted by a fine film of damp, or oil: his date-black eyes thickly lashed, and outrageous in their presumed intimacy!—
this
is the suitor Deirdre could not bring herself to reject, tho' her heart, I am certain, resided with the Christian Dr. Stoughton. There may have been, from time to time, some subtle upsurging, in Mr. Agha's dark blood, of his mother's lineage—there may even have been, in the planes and angles of his face, some scarce-perceptible outline, of an Anglo-Saxon ancestor, the which drew Deirdre to him, against her wishes.