A Bloodsmoor Romance (48 page)

Glory hallelujah!

And that is the reason I am going to the Lord,

Glory hallelujah! Glory hallelujah!

I am going to the Lord.

I saved my party and my land,

Glory hallelujah!

But they have murdered me for it,

And that is the reason I am going to the Lordy,

Glory hallelujah!

Glory hallelujah!

T
hus chanted the assassin of President James Garfield, in a high quivering declamatory voice, on the executioner's scaffold, in Washington, D.C., at midday of June 30, 1882. And the executioner adjusted the black hood over his small, sleek head; and affixed the noose around his neck; and the trap was sprung; and, before a hushed throng of some two hundred fifty spectators (a number of whom had paid $300 for the privilege of witnessing the hanging), Charles Jules Guiteau fell like a shot to within eighteen inches of the ground, whereupon his neck snapped, and he died, after several minutes of strangulated agony, a death befitting the murderer of a President.

His skeleton went to the Army Medical Museum, for display.

The revolver he had used—a .44 caliber British Bulldog with a white bone handle—went to the National Museum, despite the efforts of many collectors to acquire it. (Guiteau had bought an expensive model, he said, because it would look more impressive in a museum display case.)

His autograph, which he had been selling for $1 a card, was scattered far and wide: for such was the avidity of the public in those days, for even the relics of a condemned murderer, and a piteous madman.

John Quincy Zinn, reading of the execution, in the sunlit parlor of the Octagonal House, sighed, and drew his hand roughly through his graying hair, and, laying the newspaper aside, made his way wordlessly to the outdoors: and to the path that led back to his workshop. For June 30, 1882, must be interpreted as a day like any other: a facet of Eternity caught in Time.

 

J.Q.Z. DID NOT
know, for Mrs. Zinn thought it best not to inform him, that, upon several occasions, his former acquaintance and fellow boardinghouse resident, the peculiar little Guiteau, had applied to both the Kidde­masters and the Zinns, for “financial restitution”—his argument being that John Quincy Zinn had stolen from him certain ideas of education reform which had been “exploited” in
The Spirit of the Future in America.
In one lengthy letter, written in a wild hand, he had claimed that it was he who had supplied John Quincy Zinn with the “basic fundamentals” of science and invention; in another, he claimed that it was he who had, elaborating upon the Perfectionist doctrine of John H. Noyes, supplied Mr. Zinn with his prevailing philosophy of life, without which he could not have accomplished anything worthwhile. (J.Q.Z., tho' by no means as famous as certain of his fellow inventors—Whitney, Fulton, and Morse, among others—had by this time acquired a modicum of fame: more for his generous contributions to others' theories, than for the completion and marketing of his own.) In the most impudent letter, the ingrate Guiteau laid claim for having “brought together” John Quincy Zinn and Prudence Kidde­master—the “fortune hunter” and the “fortune,” in his crude jesting terms, without which J.Q.Z. “could not have accomplished anything at all.”

An unhappy tale it is, and one, alas, from which no moral imperative, indeed, no conclusions whatsoever, can be drawn: the spasmodic stages of Charles J. Guiteau's questionable “maturity,” from the feckless and enthusiastic young Philadelphian whom John Quincy, in his generosity, had befriended, to the insane slaughterer of President James Garfield, who had insisted at his trial, amidst much nonsensical giggling and carryings-on, that the assassination of Mr. Garfield was a consequence of
Divine Commandment!

Such was the pattern of delusion into which the unfortunate man gradually fell, that, upon his final expulsion (by servants) from Kidde­master Hall, where he had gone to peddle a staggering quantity of his pamphlet of religious lectures,
The Truth: A Companion to the Bible,
he suddenly reversed his prior claim, and now insisted that John Quincy Zinn had pressed upon
him
the numerous ideas that guided his life, and had flooded his brain for more than twenty years. “You will not be able to silence me!” he shouted from the road, waving his wide-brimmed black hat at the several servants, who had, resorting in desperation to physical coercion, carried him from the front door, and along the lengthy gravel drive, to the gate, and into the public road. “How will you be able to silence me? I know John Quincy of old! We are friends—we are brothers—we are twins of old!”

But he departed that day, and did not return to Bloodsmoor. And Mrs. Zinn, who trembled to hear of his charges, and his very propinquity, made every effort to put him out of her mind. For all of that day, and most of the next, she could barely tolerate poor little Pip in her presence—Pip with his elderly, wise, wizened face, and his sly winking button eyes, and his pink snubbed nose, and his periods of eloquent brooding silence: Pip who, Mrs. Zinn sometimes uneasily felt, might tell them all so much, of his origin and their destiny, if only he could speak.

THIRTY-FOUR

I
t was on a chill, drear autumn day, when mist rose in narrow curls from the gorge, and the mood of the little workshop-cabin was somewhat subdued (for tho' Mr. Zinn had pleased Mrs. Zinn enormously by accepting another assignment from a manufacturer, which was to reward him with $10,000 in a lump sum, neither he nor Samantha considered the challenge worthwhile: and perhaps it was rather vulgar)—it was on this featureless November afternoon, whilst Pip slumbered fretfully by the stove, and Mr. Zinn, at his workbench, sighed frequently, and Samantha lost an important diagram amongst her plans, and found it, and then again lost it, out of sheer carelessness and the effect of strained nerves (for both Mrs. Zinn and Great-Aunt Edwina were plaguing her of late, as to her “hopes for the future”)—it was at that irresolute—nay, somnolent—hour of the day, neither daylight, still, nor safely night, that the agitated Samantha caught sight of something in the gorge, a human figure, perhaps, tho' indistinct, and immediately obscured by twists and curls of fog; and, standing stock-still for many seconds, her breath withheld, the keen-sighted young lady waited for it to reappear, and to explain itself, as a natural phenomenon: no doubt some trickery of the mist, the diminishing daylight, and her own nervous fatigue.

After a brief while the shape reappeared, some distance away, defining itself as altogether too bizarre of proportions to be human, or even animal; and then, before Samantha could call her father's attention to it, fortunately it disappeared again—fortunately, I say, because Samantha had been quite reluctant to interrupt Mr. Zinn at his work, particularly on a whim. (As it turned out, the eerie shape in the gorge simply vanished—had never been, perhaps, more than a momentary delusion.)
My eyes,
Samantha scolded herself, rubbing them cruelly,
are they playing tricks on me?

“You seem rather troubled, Samantha,” Mr. Zinn observed, from his side of the room. “I hope that nothing is disturbing you?”

“Nothing at all, Father,” Samantha answered in haste. “I pray I did not disturb
you.
”

 

BY A COINCIDENCE
of a purely temporal sort, quite without narrative significance (tho' the propinquity in time must needs be noted, my chronicle of the Zinn family making its claim, however humbly, for historical authenticity), it happened that, not three hours later, near about the time Mr. Zinn and Samantha prepared to close up their laboratory for the evening, to retire to the Octagonal House for the domestic pleasures of dinner and the hearth, there was, at first so softly as to be near-inaudible, a knock on the door: and the skittish Pip awoke from his nap, to leap to Mr. Zinn's shoulder with that exaggerated alarm, which so frequently annoyed his master.

The knock was repeated; and, father and daughter exchanging a quizzical glance (for who could possibly be knocking at the door of their laboratory retreat, away off in the woods, at first dark of a singularly dreary November day?), Mr. Zinn betook himself to answer the door, wiping his stained hands on his workclothes, and cautioning his daughter that the interruption must be merely that of a servant from the Hall, on some errand of harmless principle, which should arouse irritation in neither: for, after all, they were about to lock up for the night, in any case.

And so Mr. Zinn opened the door, expecting to see a familiar face: and there stood a stranger in an oilcloth cape, streaming moisture, and a shabby wide-brimmed rain hat pulled low upon his forehead, and crude farmer's boots that reached to mid-calf, and were badly splattered with mud.

Greetings being exchanged, on both sides uttered with some surprise, and not a little embarrassment (for tho' the young man appeared to know Mr. Zinn, or at least to be familiar with his reputation, Mr. Zinn naturally did not know him), it was explained that the visitor, one Nahum Hareton, was a stranger to Bloodsmoor, and had come on foot, as a pilgrim, simply to shake the hand of John Quincy Zinn: and perhaps to apply (the meanwhile blushing with childlike awe and confusion) for a
position in the workshop.

Mr. Zinn began to laugh, heartily, and yet kindly, urging the young man to come farther inside, and to take off his wet things. “A position in my workshop! Alas, our financial situation here is such, my daughter and I can scarcely justify our own positions. But let us chat awhile, and become acquainted. I hope you are not too fatigued?”

Now taking in the sight of Samantha (upon whose slender shoulder the affrighted Pip had just leapt), the visitor was even more confused, and began to stammer apologies. He explained that of course he would not expect remuneration of any sort. “I should like only to apprentice myself to you,” he said, his pale face mottled with blushes, “for as long, or as brief, a period as you might wish.”

“First we shall become acquainted,” Mr. Zinn said cheerily, “and then I shall, I hope, dissuade you of your purpose. Samantha, dear, do step forward: perhaps you o'erheard our visitor's name? Nahum Hareton, I believe?” He urged the reticent young lady to come closer, introducing her as his youngest daughter, and the only assistant he had ever had, or would ever require. “Samantha is a scientist of such mental ingenuity, Mr. Hareton, as to one day, surely, eclipse
my
abortive blunderings, and provide the world with remarkable gifts. At the present she is, I fear, somewhat burdened with tasks of every sort of petty nature—but one day her spirit will take flight—and we shall see, we shall see!”

“I am very honored to make your acquaintance,” the young man said, bowing awkwardly. His smile was nervous but appealing; his eyes were a pale brown, clear and keen, and quite obviously those of a person of especial intelligence. “I apologize for my intrusion, Miss Zinn, and hope that you will forgive me.”

Samantha, curtsying, murmured a vague reply, displaying none of the annoyance and suspicion she naturally felt (for not only did John Quincy Zinn's daughter resent such forthright appeals to her father's good nature, but these were the odious days of Thomas Edison's spies: the much-publicized Wizard of Menlo Park having established his laboratory for the purpose of “inventions by order,” not many years before); she made every effort to match her father's congeniality, and bade the self-conscious young man to take a seat by the stove, and to accept a cup of tea, should he allow her five minutes to reheat the water.

Mr. Hareton inclined to her wishes, with many protestations of gratitude, and a reiterated hope that he was not intruding; and, Mr. Zinn drawing a chair forward for him, the two men sat companionably by the fire, and Samantha made tea, scolding in an undertone the trembling little spider monkey, and taking in, covertly, Mr. Nahum Hareton, who might very well be (so the shrewd Samantha reasoned) a spy; or the innocent pilgrim he seemed.

Mr. Hareton was a thin, angular-jawed young man of perhaps twenty-five years of age, clean-shaven, of a stature considerably smaller in height and breadth than Mr. Zinn's own, yet withal possessing a certain quiet confidence. His features were small, and inclined toward a frank, plain, pleasant homeliness; and tho' his manner suggested an origin of some rusticity, and his English was surely not that of an urban dweller, he did demonstrate, to Samantha's critical eye, a pleasing restraint, and a subtlety of personality that argued for a reliable character.

The men, as the saying goes, “got on well” together, and after a while even Pip relaxed, and made overtures to Mr. Hareton, who seemed boyishly pleased to stroke the furry creature's little head, and scratch behind his ears. It rather exasperated Samantha, tho' in truth it hardly surprised her, that Mr. Zinn, within an hour's space, should begin to speak intimately of his projects, and his plans for the future—touching only lightly upon the commissioned assignment (an improvement in the Dumont-Santos pneumatic process for steel conversion, which he and Samantha hoped to discharge within a month and for which, naturally, they would receive no patent royalties); and dwelling at length upon their speculative hopes for the perpetual-motion machine; and an electric-fueled “auto-wagen” to replace the horsedrawn carriage; and “aero-locomotives” of various sizes; and a visual accompaniment to Morse's lightning waves; and a device to record and preserve sound; and “photographic film”; and an electric dirigible, of a size to approach two thousand cubic meters, with an aluminum frame, numerous propellers, and a revolutionary propulsive motor. (This dream-dirigible was but crudely realized in the most recent Parisian experiments, which Mr. Zinn and Samantha had assiduously studied, in the French journal
Patrie.
)

Alas, if he is one of the Wizard's hired spies,
Samantha thought, biting her lower lip, and regarding the young man with her level, ponderous, greeny-gray stare, which quite disconcerted the few young society men she met, and very much offended her family.
But there is no subduing Father's generous nature, and not even bitter experience can harden him—dear man!