A Bloodsmoor Romance (50 page)

Indeed, being born in 1862, she felt herself very much a
child of the era,
maturing—nay, being catapulted—into the accelerated times, of the post-War years, in which it was so commonly felt that
one must make haste, else Destiny will be lost;
and greedy rivals triumph. Ah, what a pity it would be, what a tragedy, Samantha oft thought, if other inventors—less scrupulous, more criminal—should rush forward, to discover, and patent, and become millionaires by, the great machines she and John Quincy Zinn had been born to perfect!

THIRTY-FIVE

I
t was as the slyly manipulative and irresistibly charming Countess in the confection
Countess Fifine,
which ran for more than two hundred performances at the Fanshawe, that Malvinia Morloch achieved her first truly extravagant commercial success, and so succeeded in entering the cultural milieu, by accident rather than merit, that, for a time, she was an object of adoration whose name and picture were likely to be in all the papers, from one week to the next; and whose suitors—among them a number of very wealthy men, both married and unmarried—were so persistent, special doormen had to be hired at the Plaza Hotel, simply to deal with them. Her hair style in
Countess Fifine
inspired a vogue among the most fashionable ladies of New York, and for a while one saw “Countesses” everywhere: none, alas, possessing quite the attractions of the original. (As Countess Fifine, Malvinia wore her magnificent dark hair in a heavy chignon that hung to her shoulders, enclosed in a chenille net snood, with a coronet of purple velvet trimmed in pearls—the effect of which was to emphasize, ironically, the angelic beauty of her features.)

Coquettish .
.
. enchanting .
.
. unforgettable .
.
. simply marvelous:
so the critics unanimously responded. Malvinia read every notice of her performances, and saved every scrap of newsprint that mentioned her name, greedy and delighted as a child. If, at times, her connection with Orlando Vandenhoffen gave her cause to brood, and even to weep; if the frequent mention, in the same papers, of “Deirdre of the Shadows” (who was becoming famous as well—for a very different sort of performance), caused her considerable agitation; and if, however rarely, the reckless child cast her mind back upon Bloodsmoor, and the family that had loved her so dearly, she had only to sift through her growing stack of notices, and reread the letters of fulsome praise and adoration she received daily, and tear open the wrappings of yet another luxurious gift, to placate herself, and forget who she was.

I am very very happy,
she scribbled idly, on the reverse of a crumpled sheet of gilt wrapping paper,
I have never been so happy in my life. .
.
. Indeed, I cannot remember my life until now!

(Yet even then, in what might be called the halcyon, or even the honeymoon, phase of her existence as “Malvinia Morloch,” an unmistakable evil was asserting itself in her being: an evil to which I will assign the name
The Mark of the Beast,
since it was in these terms certain members of the Kidde­master family referred to it . . . the affliction being an hereditary trait, of which I will write in detail at a later time, the prospect is so displeasing, and humanly vile.)

 

HOW MALVINIA ZINN
was transformed so rapidly, and with such immediate reward, into “Malvinia Morloch,” had much to do with the arrogance of Orlando Vandenhoffen (who boasted that he could “create” an actress overnight; and who so threatened the manager of the Fanshawe Theatre with a defection to the rival Broadway, the hapless man bitterly surrendered, and cast Malvinia opposite Vandenhoffen in
A Flash of Lightning
), and very little, indeed, to do with Malvinia's natural gifts for the stage. I am not one of that slavish tribe that attributes to the acting profession the accolade
artist
(for such must be reserved for those who have dedicated themselves to a
spiritual
and
moral
idealism), yet I acquiesce in the widespread belief that there may be a certain genius amidst the thespian endeavor, as demonstrated by such stars of the American stage as Charlotte Cushman, Edwin Booth, Charles Coghlan, and Maurice Barrymore. This Malvinia did not possess. She knew no more of genius, than she knew of virtue; tho' a certain low cunning and monkeylike shrewdness were adequate, for a time, to bedazzle her audiences, and even her fellow actors.

That Malvinia could flounce herself about, attired in costly and ostentatious costumes, her face so luridly made up that its charms were broadcast to the cheapest seats in the house; that she could prattle, and lisp, and weep, and laugh, and stamp her foot, and make pretty little
moues,
and pretend to claw at her cheeks with her nails, so that her admiring audiences shuddered; that she could recite to perfection any speech presented to her, with so livid a semblance of sincerity, that even her director and fellow actors might be gulled into thinking she knew what she did—all this she was fully capable of accomplishing; and if this be “talent,” then “talent” Malvinia Morloch possessed.

“Isn't it an enchanting little monkey!” Orlando Vandenhoffen exclaimed in an undertone, to his very good friend and confidante Mrs. Agnes Foote, the actress who had retired so notoriously from the stage a decade previously, in order to take up residence, as New York would have it, in the role of “hostess” for the elderly financier Hiram DeHorne. “You see her reciting by rote the speech I instructed her in, only last night: and mark how she animates her face, and uses her beautiful little hands! And this in an actress so
amateur,
any schoolgirl could boast of as much experience.”

“She
is
good,” Mrs. Foote acknowledged, fanning herself lazily, “and
you
are wonderfully fortunate: for what else, may I inquire, have you taught her to do by rote?”

Orlando Vandenhoffen, smitten with his beauteous young charge, and basking, no doubt, in the dazzling glare of her infatuation for him, would not rest until he had introduced Malvinia to all his friends and associates; and bragged of her even to the press, as “the next Adelaide Neilson”—a remark tactless indeed, for the beautiful Miss Neilson had died so recently as 1880, and was still warmly remembered, and even adored, by not a few among the playgoing public. “Like Miss Neilson,” Vandenhoffen said, “Miss Morloch has come from a most alluring romantic background—the details of which I am not privileged to reveal, at the present time.”

With a blatant disregard for the mores of society, Vandenhoffen established Malvinia in his suite at the Plaza, and showed her off, as it were, at Sherry's, and Delmonico's, and the Park Lane, and the St. Nicklaus, and the Astor, and the Hotel Marie Antoinette, and the vulgarly sumptuous Fifth Avenue residence of the W. K. Vanderbilts (where, at a fancy-dress ball of 1883, Vandenhoffen and his young mistress came as Romeo and Juliet, in the midst of a crowd of “historical personages,” including Biblical figures, Renaissance despots, dethroned and decapitated European nobility, and General Ulysses S. Grant, who appeared, not altogether soberly, as himself); he was proud to have Malvinia on his arm, at the annual game banquet at the Waldorf, in which the main dining room was transformed into a miniature forest replete with stuffed animals and fowl, where freed nightingales sang in groves of rose and hibiscus trees, and artificial arbors were lavishly hung with hothouse grapes, and every manner of meat, fish, and fowl—
every
manner, from walrus steak to hummingbird tongue—was served, on gold plates, to the frenzied delight of the hundreds of guests.

He saw no harm in introducing her to Mr. Jay Gould, and Mr. Russell Sage, and Mr. Edward Daly (who had installed a faucet in his Park Avenue mansion that served champagne), and Mr. James Brady (the infamous Diamond Jim, whose attentions at that time to a “Portuguese” chorus girl were such that his interest in Malvinia was necessarily modest: he sent over to her, at the Plaza, a prankish gift of a gold-plated rocking-horse studded with tiny chip diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds, and an ermine fur side-saddle for “Countess Fifine to ride upon, bare”). So secure was Vandenhoffen in his vanity, and so convinced of his young mistress's passionate dependence upon him, that he did not even hesitate to introduce Malvinia to the notorious womanizer Nicholas Drew, at that time a frequenter of the theater, and dance halls of a questionable reputation. (Drew, the millionaire railroad man, was soon to be under fire from the Democrats, for having bribed “The Plumed Knight”—that is, the contemptible James G. Blaine—for numerous favors, in excess of $200,000.)

Now and then, of course, particularly as the months passed, Vandenhoffen
did
succumb to attacks of masculine jealousy; tho' he could not seriously believe that Malvinia might have an interest in any other man, however persistent. And it was also the case that a certain piquancy was added to their love relationship, by his own unpredictable flashes of rage, and Malvinia's shocked protestations and tears.

“I cannot believe, Orlando, that you would doubt—that it would cross your mind to doubt—my love for you,” the stricken young woman said, in a voice trembling with restraint. “These gifts—these fripperies—these mere tokens of passing interest: you must know how little I value them, and how swiftly I would discard them, if I thought you misunderstood.”

“No need, no need,” Vandenhoffen said coolly, yet with a certain pragmatic haste, lest his weeping mistress act the fool, and toss an emerald bracelet through the window, as if she were prancing about the stage at the Fanshawe. “You gravely misunderstand me, I fear.”

“But do you doubt my love for you?” Malvinia asked, staring. Her blue eyes became enormous, and her lovely skin had gone a deathly ivory-white. “My loyalty to you? My
sacrifice
for you?”

“I doubt everything and nothing,” Vandenhoffen responded, tugging impatiently at his mustache, and catching sight of his stolid, virile reflection in a gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “Yet you must recall, my sweet Malvinia, how very readily you fled your native city with me—how abruptly you cast aside your former life. As the canny Brabantio observed to Othello: ‘Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee.' ”

Whereupon the grieving Malvinia lost all restraint, and burst into angry wailing tears, and would have raked her nails across her burning cheeks had not her lover seized her wrists, to subdue her.

“Oh, cruel—cruel—cruel—and heartless!” she wept, with as much passion as if her tears, and her sorrow, were naught but artifice.

So Malvinia Morloch and Orlando Vandenhoffen quarreled, and the hotel room resounded with their high outraged voices, and many an innocent object was thrown to the floor, including vases filled with long-stemmed roses, and crystal decanters filled with wine, and the “fripperies” of Malvinia's numerous admirers. They quarreled; and were reconciled; and quarreled again, more violently; and were again reconciled. There were complaints to the management of the hotel, and lavish tips from Vandenhoffen, by way of apology. There were late-night suppers at Delmonico's, for Malvinia, who was toasted by everyone at the table, and drank rather too much, and would have crawled onto her lover's lap to sleep, like a babe, had he not pushed her, laughing, away. “Ah, but do you love me?” she murmured. “You don't! You don't love me!”—sinking back against the burnt-leather cushions, her half-dozen sapphires licentiously glinting in her hair.

Malvinia was cast as Pauline in
The Lady of Lyons,
but Vandenhoffen insisted that she accompany him to the West Coast, where he was touring in
The Two Orphans
(an unfailing favorite, in which Vandenhoffen played a knife-throwing villain, earnestly hissed by his audiences—the misfortune being that there was no suitable role for Miss Morloch). She acquiesced, but greatly resented her idleness, with the result that the lovers quarreled more frequently than before, and were actually evicted from their lavish quarters in the great Palace Hotel; whereupon they moved, with great pomp and ceremony, to the rival Baldwin—which boasted the longest bar in San Francisco, a billiard room exclusively for women, one hundred twenty-five miles of electric wiring, and interior woodwork of mahogany, East India teak, rosewood, ebony, and primavera from Mexico.

At the close of Vandenhoffen's run they returned to New York City, to a suite at the St. Regis, and rumors circulated that they were soon to be wed: or were wed already. (“But hasn't Orlando a wife and children stuck away somewhere in Europe?” it was asked.) Despite their troublesome reputations, the manager of the Fanshawe troupe was persuaded to cast them together in a revival of
Richard III,
in which Vandenhoffen repeated an old reliable success, as the sinister hunchback king,
loathed
and yet
adored
by his audience; and Malvinia Morloch established a somewhat lesser, but still significant, success as Anne, the widow courted by Richard in the very presence of her husband's corpse!

On many an evening the lovers quarreled backstage, and brought their white-hot nerves behind the footlights with them, so that the theater thrilled with their undisguised passion—whether love, or intense hatred—for each other. Richard was a diabolical villain, Anne a trapped victim, his equal in venom:

ANNE:
Thou wast the cause, and most accurs'd effect.

GLOU:
Your beauty was the cause of that effect—

Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep

To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

ANNE:
If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide.