A Bloodsmoor Romance (101 page)

Once, there being no servant close by, Hassan Agha made so bold as to seize Deirdre's hand, and would have brought it to his o'erwarm lips, had she not snatched it away at once, and rose to her feet, her bosom heaving in visible distress. “You must leave!” the agitated young lady fiercely said. “I cannot be so insulted!”

As if uncoiling from his snake's posture, Hassan Agha rose languidly to his full height, and bowed, Deirdre knew not mockingly, or no, and murmured: “You are hardly insulted, my dear Deirdre, unless to be
loved,
and
desired,
is an
insult.
” These coarse words uttered, I am constrained to say, with all the elegance, and chill dignity, of which the son of a heathen prince might sometimes be capable.

 

THESE BRIEF VIGNETTES,
constituting, as it were, a look into the future subsequent to that historic April Sunday, would not, I assume, greatly offend either the reader, or the authoress, were they more fully developed: yet my duty lies elsewhere; and I cannot any longer, in all conscience, forestall it.

That I, as the narrator, am not to
blame
for the sordidness of this particular enterprise, and that the sophisticated reader well comprehends this fact, does very little, I confess, to alleviate my sense of both
revulsion,
and
guilt.
Nor does the fact that, in seeking to illumine the duplicitous ways by which the eldest Zinn girl, Constance Philippa, alter'd herself, or was alter'd, into the outlaw Philippe Fox, I freely—nay, proudly—confess myself
I am ignorant of all detail, and wish to remain so.
For is not the artist, as I have argued earlier, obliged to serve the higher moral truths, in his or her craft? Is he not obliged to
better
the world, and not merely
transcribe
it?

Hard truths! A taxing mission! Yet, following the meritorious example of Our Saviour Himself, do we inhabit this vale of tears merely out of happenstance; or for a decided purpose?

Thus, I am wildly agitated, and have been so for many hours: indeed, when my thoughts veer to
this subject,
I am half tempted to abandon my chronicle, even as it nears its consummation, after so many hundreds of meticulously wrought pages, and so many “serene sweetnesses alternating with the Tempest's pranks”—to quote Mrs. Martyn. On the one hand, I have determined to record the truth, and naught but the truth; on the other, I shrink from appearing to offer, to the reader of refined sensibility, an
obscene document.
(And, too, I am heartsick, at the distinct possibility, that, amidst my readership, there may well be, here and there, those persons of the masculine gender, who, lacking an intrinsic purity of character, may, by laborious effort, and much unseemly exercise of the lower ranges of the imagination,
summon forth a prurient gratification,
from these hapless pages!)

Yet, I cannot any longer procrastinate, but must, in a single outcry, publish my unspeakable truth: the which no one amongst the Zinns and the Kidde­masters was ever to know (God having determined to spare them!), and no one in this narrative, indeed, saving Mrs. Delphine Ormond (whose sentiments on the subject will remain unknown), was ever to guess: that the mysterious Philippe Fox was not, as all quietly believed, the womanly Constance Philippa, in disguise, but, in incontrovertible fact,
a man.

That he was once the Constance Philippa we have known, and, as such, was consequently female, I do not deny: for during the first two and a half decades of his life he, or rather she, was indeed female. Yet—this does not gainsay the fact that, from approximately 1887 forward, and certainly during the period at hand, Philippe Fox was a man in every particular: that is, no matter the happier life he, or she, had led before, in our belovèd Bloodsmoor, he was a male being in 1899: which is to say, a creature, in our species,
of the masculine persuasion!

EIGHTY

O
ur scene rudely shifts to a setting not far distance from the regally proportion'd Kidde­master Hall, to one we have not before visited, the smaller, yet still gracious, Mt. Espérance, the ancestral abode of the Ormonds: and to that hellish night, in late October, when, against all the constraints of common decency, an adulterous elopement ensued—
the stealing-away of the former Delphine Martineau, by our blackguard Philippe Fox.

Well may you recoil in disbelief, and in intrinsic disgust: yet it was so: and I cannot but think, greatly as it grieves my heart, that Miss Deirdre Zinn did irreparable, tho' unintention'd damage, by allowing the Fox creature
one-seventh
of Edwina Kidde­master's massive fortune. (How much, dear reader, would
one-seventh
of that inheritance be?—granting even the woeful incursions of death taxes? As the precise calculations of the estate's worth were to involve some five years of labor, on the part of Basil Miller and a small, but keenly dedicated, staff of assistants, there being innumerable complications, not excluding the vicious contesting of Sir Reginald Burlingame's will, by certain of his spiteful English scions, and as the final settlement—ah, after
so much
costly labor!—lies well beyond the scope I have determined for myself, of this history, that is, into the Twentieth Century, I believe I shall confine myself to speculation, of the sort rampant, in 1899, amongst the inhabitants of Bloodsmoor, Philadelphia, and the East more generally, as to the final worth of the estate—which is to say (so Basil Miller thoughtfully hazarded),
some eighteen billion dollars,
albeit in the inflated currency of the time, which would divide into more than
two and a half billion dollars,
for each of the sharers! And whilst this staggering sum was by no means accessible, at present, to the Fox creature, he was nonetheless able to borrow from Philadelphia sources such sums as he calculated might be necessary, to aid him in his immoral scheme—indeed, it was nothing short of scandalous, how gentlemen of divers rank and station, and, one might have thought, of principle, jostled with one another, in shameless eagerness to lend Philippe Fox money!

Our scene having been most reluctantly established, at the sombre Mt. Espérance, so close by Kidde­master Hall that, upon that gusty October night, the depraved “lover” of Mrs. Ormond could in fact hear the bells of Trinity Church tolling the hour, I suppose there is no recourse but to continue: and to illumine, with as little graphic detail as possible, how the illicit lovers in loathsome stealth fashioned their plan, to circumnavigate the numerous obstacles Mr. Ormond had devised, to keep his wife captive; and how Fox made bold entrance into the very citadel of Mr. Ormond's sanctified marriage, his ancestral home; and how, brandishing a pistol, of o'erlarge proportions, he freed Mrs. Ormond from her turret “sickroom,” and, before the astonish'd eyes of her husband,
bore her away into the storm-toss'd night,
in a carriage hired for that very purpose.

Mt. Espérance, erected at about the same time as Kidde­master Hall, tho' in a less scenic part of the Bloodsmoor Valley, owed much to the Greek Revival style of architecture, then in fashion, yet possessed, withal, a gloomy and even fanciful air, as a consequence of old General Ormond's preoccupation with Rhenish castles of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To the solid, foursquare, and, in my opinion, incomparably eurythmic, Greek Revival structure, the General had caused to be added upward of a half-dozen turrets, in handcut stone; as well as ornamental walls, ramparts, and bastions.

It was in one of the larger turrets, at the northeast corner of the house, that Mrs. Ormond, now a mature woman in her late thirties, and the mother of two children (an angelic girl of seventeen, very pretty, and small for her age; and a somewhat dull-minded, tho' husky, boy of fifteen), was ensconced, by Mr. Ormond's solemn decree. For it was the case, and evidently had been so, for upward of six years, that, inclining as she did toward alternating periods of melancholy and hysteria, and frenzied accusations of divers sorts, made against her husband, Mrs. Ormond was most prudently kept in an invalid's bower: so that the unhappy woman could not cause harm to herself, or, by spreading scandal amongst the household, contaminate others, whom, before her enforced convalescence, she had sought to enlist on her side. (The accusations Mrs. Ormond had made against her lawfully wedded spouse, having to do with his habits of gambling, alcoholic imbibing, and consorting with females of a certain rank, are not the sort I care to enumerate, in a chapter in which there will be, I fear, far too much deference made to vice, as it is. That there may have been some small kernel of truth, to Mrs. Ormond's proposals, cannot be seriously doubted; yet, withal, it was given out by many of Mr. Ormond's gentlemen friends, and business associates, that the hysterical woman exaggerated—an inclination, I am sorry to say, rampant in our sex. In any case, given the sanctity of the marriage vows, and the promise made by the bride, to
love, honor,
and
obey,
as well as the law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, regarding property, the rights of married women, and of women in general, I cannot see but that it was an act of grievous error, on Mrs. Ormond's part, to so noisily protest against her husband's real or imagin'd vices.)

Thus—the once-vivacious
Delphine Martineau,
now the invalided
Mrs. Justin Ormond,
held, by order of her physician Dr. Popock, to a regimen of quiet, bedrest, and medicines of sufficient efficacy, to still her raised voice, and calm her tempestuous spirit.

 

IT WAS WITH
uncanny alacrity that Philippe Fox, not two days after his arrival in Bloodsmoor, came to know of Delphine Ormond's fate:
how
he made the discovery, and
who
was so reckless as to speak openly with him, I cannot guess.

Brashly he confronted Octavia, and interrogated her: What did she know of Delphine Ormond? Was it true, that the woman was
imprison'd
at Mt. Espérance, under her husband's lock and key? And why did no one, in her family, or elsewhere, spring forth to her aid?

Octavia, flush-cheeked, found it most difficult, simply to meet the Fox personage's eye (for, like the others, she fancied “he” was but Constance Philippa, in grotesque disguise); to be involved with him, in a heated discussion, was exceedingly unpleasant. “I cannot say,” Octavia murmured, vigorously fanning herself; and stooping to plant a kiss, on the forehead of her little boy, Lucius Quincy, that winsome child who was, with the passage of time, called more and more frequently simply Quincy, as he expressed an adamant dislike to the name Lucius, for childish, and, it may be, inexplicable reasons. “I cannot say; I do not know; pray, excuse me, Mr. Fox.”

Yet he rudely detained her, and, scowling most ferociously, said: “But, Mrs. Rumford, have you no sympathy for the poor woman? No sense of horror, and shock, and concern, at her distress? Have you,” and here the abrupt-manner'd individual paused, giving Octavia a most withering look of contempt, “no gossipmonger's
interest?
”

His querying of Malvinia was of course to no avail: for Malvinia knew less than he did, of the lost Delphine Martineau. In a speculative voice Malvinia spoke of Delphine's marriage, many years back: how she, Malvinia, had thought the match a fairly good one, by Bloodsmoor standards, so far as the groom's wealth, family background, and social graces were concerned. “That the marriage has turned out tragically, as you seem to have learned, Mr. Fox, is perhaps less a matter for surprise, or concern, here in Bloodsmoor, than it might be elsewhere,” Malvinia said. And then, with no alteration in expression, she continued: “Our eldest sister Constance Philippa—with whom, of course, you are intimately acquainted—has surely told you of
her
tragic marriage?—the which was not, I believe, lacking in its comedic aspects, tho' the insulted Baron von Mainz was, I daresay, but slenderly amused.
You
have not, by any chance, ever had the pleasure of making the Baron's acquaintance—?”

Mr. Fox's hesitation was scarce perceptible, and his response, tho' hurried, altogether admirable: “I have not, Miss Zinn, had the
pleasure
of making the acquaintance of any European nobleman, in my entire lifetime: that is not precisely the word one might choose.”

Samantha was naturally of little aid: she seemed most perplex'd, to be asked to recall Miss Delphine Martineau, from girlhood days; and had no awareness of, or evident interest in, Delphine's fate in subsequent years. “Have you inquired of our mother, Mr. Fox? It is unlikely that she will be helpful, no matter how great the extent of her knowledge: but, of us all, Mother can be relied upon, to
know
the very worst there is to be known, of Bloodsmoor scandals.”

Mr. Fox's gaze visibly darkened, and his creased brow grew yet more furrowed. In a low breathless voice he spake: “Of all of you—that woman—
that
lady—of all of Bloodsmoor—
she
cannot be approached!—or, at any rate,” he said with a mirthless laugh, the while dabbing at his damp mouth and throat with a handkerchief, “
I
am not the one, to dare it.”

 

NONETHELESS, THIS RESOURCEFUL
stranger was able, within a scant week, to discover a great deal about Mrs. Ormond, by means of the
bribery
of treacherous servants, in Mr. Ormond's employ at Mt. Espérance.

The comely and vivacious young mistress of the household, belovèd by all the staff, had learned, to her horror, that her husband enjoyed a kind of secret, or double, existence, in the “low haunts” and “houses of ill repute,” of Philadelphia and elsewhere: this shocking discovery being made whilst Mrs. Ormond was with child, and so dumbfounding her, she sank into a swoon, and suffered a miscarriage, and would perhaps have bled to death, had it not been for the midwifery skills of one of the servants.