A Bloodsmoor Romance (60 page)

 

THO' THE PUBLIC
career of Deirdre of the Shadows had progressed, as I have noted, with a satisfactory speed, and the financial rewards garnered were, for the most part, not disappointing, it was nonetheless the case that no one—not even the timidly bold medium herself—might have predicted the
triumph,
and the
scandal,
that would result from the investigation of the Society for Psychical Research into her mediumship: tho' the calculating young woman was correct in her assumption that, daring to take on the Society's scrutiny, she should have fashioned a break with Blavatsky and the Theosophists, and won for herself that degree of independence so eagerly, and so unwisely, desired by certain American females of the latter half of our century. “If you agree to this examination,” Madame said, hoarsely and sadly, her pouched eyes fixed upon Deirdre's with very little of their power of old, “I shall interpret your action as both impetuous and ungrateful—my cruel Lolo!” And Deirdre said with equanimity, shrinking from the harsh odor of Madame's cigarette, and the hardly less harsh fragrance that hovered about her person, redolent of garlic, and Indian incense, and mammalian flesh but sporadically washed: “Madame, you must calculate your interpretations as you see fit—perhaps the Mahatmas can guide you.”

Deirdre was dwelling at this time in a handsome apartment in the Fifth Avenue home of the widow Strong, whose altruism had not abated over the years; whilst Madame, with a varying contingent of
chelas
and Theosophists and devotees of the occult, maintained a somewhat shabbier household—the famous Lamasery, in fact, whose exotic furnishings were soon to be sold on the auction block—unfashionably north and west, on Forty-seventh Street and Eighth Avenue. This unpleasant disagreement having arisen between them, as they dined alone together, the older woman had no recourse but to take her leave at once, with a blood-suffused face, and that occasional dignity of which the very corpulent, and the very abash'd, can be capable. “I bid you
adieu,
my vainglorious American miss,” Madame said; and Deirdre, her gaze fixed upon the carpet with the selfsame stillness, and the selfsame obstinacy, that had so maddened her sisters years before, murmured only: “And I, Madame, bid you
goodbye.
”

 

THE FIRST SITTINGS
offered by Deirdre of the Shadows had been held in private homes, like Landsdowne House, with very little publicity, and all who participated pledged to secrecy: for Madame had a predilection for secrecy, believing it to be the most practical fount of self-promotion. Did not the world's greatest religions spring, at their source, from mystery?—from disciples sworn to silence? “Nor must we offer you too cheaply,” Madame advised. “A democratic people value
only
what is o'erpriced.”

Deirdre's early clients, assembled by Madame Blavatsky in concert with the widow Strong, were female for the most part, incontestably well-to-do, and genteel even in their bereavement. So desirous were they of communing with their dead, and so desirous were the dead of communing with them, that the young and inexperienced medium would barely be seated at the table, and Hassan Agha and the other attendants would scarcely have settled the clients—
guests,
as they were called—and subtly dimmed the lights, when the spirits of the deceased relatives would rush forward!—oft pushing violently past Deirdre's contact spirits,
Mrs. Dodd
and
Father Darien,
to cause a considerable upset in the room. Oh! the confusion!—the thrill of abject terror that communicated itself from person to person, around the oval table! A clatter as of china and cutlery, and an occasional smashing of glassware; a maniacal rapping and banging, as if it were All Hallows' Eve; gay, drunken, importunate voices interrupting one another, and clamoring to be heard; a flood—a Babel—a cacophony punctuated by isolated cries of genuine, and heartrending, despair: “Mother!” a voice sounded, and “Daughter!” and “O my son, my son!”

The young medium, attired in sombre black, with a black lace cap on her head, and the little gold locket about her neck, sank at once into trance; and then into a deeper trance; her eyes partly open, the lids fluttering, and the eyeball itself sometimes rolling upward—a ghastly sight, which, coupled with the extraordinary pallor of the medium's skin at this time, and the queer crackling and frizzing of her hair, as if with static electricity, produced a most disconcerting, yet most satisfying, effect around the table. As she sank into deeper, and yet deeper, trance, the mature spirits were able to restore calm, and the alarming pandemonium of the opening minutes would subside.

The voice of
Mrs. Dodd
—stern, peremptory, and subtly amused—would issue from Deirdre's throat, assuring the guests that their loved ones were present, and would speak with them in turn: there was no cause for anxiety about time or sequence, or any vestige of
earthly protocol,
for Spirit World was all of a simultaneity.
Those who have loved you continue to love you, and those whom you have loved continue to require your love, that they may be less lonely: for even Paradise can be lonely, when families have been split asunder.

So the voice of the estimable
Mrs. Dodd
assured the little gathering, issuing through Deirdre's frail vessel of a body, a voice not her own, as even the most detached and skeptical observer would note.

(Indeed, at such uncanny times, Deirdre's mind broke into shards, and she experienced dream-images of such compelling vibrancy and authenticity, it would have been very difficult for her to realize that they were
not real,
but only phantasms, visual, and without sound or thought: once she discovered herself, bodiless, no more than an optic nerve that quivered with mute astonishment, in the ruins of a great Mayan city, in the Central American jungle, the tall adobe buildings with their narrow windows absolutely empty—empty of all human inhabitants—yet with an unsettling air of being only
recently
emptied; another time, she discovered herself in her adoptive father's workshop above the Bloodsmoor Gorge, and there was Mr. Zinn himself, absorbed as always in his work—but ah! how changed!—for he had become wizened and bald, and his skin had turned a queer metallic texture, silvery and metallic, wondrous to behold: and he had no consciousness of Deirdre, or, indeed, of any of his surroundings, being so rabidly hunched over his machine, a machine-man hunched over a machine, scarcely five feet tall. Still another time, during one of her most successful séances, in fact, conducted by
Mrs. Dodd, Father Darien,
and a surprisingly sober
Bianca,
Deirdre discovered herself, again bodiless, in a remote and bitterly cold place where the earth, encased in ice, curved most abnormally away, and no vegetation showed itself, and not even an outcropping of rock, and solitary birds flew close over the ice, their dazzling white feathers perfect as if
they
were ice: ah, and their long crooked necks and cruelly hooked beaks!—and their small gleaming eyes, invulnerable as rock!—and her heart cried out in rapturous yearning, to be one of them, alone, in utter isolation, where no spirits could follow, for no
life
had ever been
lived:
for what need had the polar cap of
life,
encased in such beauty? The solitary white birds, the great dazzling-white birds, their beaks, their long crooked necks, their staring eyes . . . )

There is no death, Mrs. Dodd
assured the agitated people around the table.
Your loved ones await you—they are always present.

There is no death, Father Darien
said. His voice was firm and manly; the intrusive French accent, scarcely perceptible.

There is no death,
the child
Bianca
lisped, with as much heartfelt joy, as if the news were gladsome.

 

(AND HOW WAS
the trick accomplished?—the innumerable tricks? How did mere girls like Deirdre of the Shadows not only present themselves, in the late 1800's, as intermediaries between the
visible
and
invisible
worlds, boldly making sorties, as it were, into the religious domain, by custom and by natural law the province of masculine authority? How did they not only present themselves as conduits by which the Dead might address the Living, and vice versa, but, through some unspeakable sortilege, manage to convince others, including many objective observers, that theirs was a mission undefiled by fraud, and chicanery, and dementia? How did they, like Deirdre, surrender themselves to contact spirits, who, in turn, brought forth other spirits, warmly desirous of communicating with the living, and entirely convincing in both content and manner of delivery?

My answer is—and I am half-shamed to confess it—
I simply do not know.
)

However she did it, with whatever innocent or less-than-innocent strategies, Deirdre appeared to bring into contact many who had been divided by death: she took her place with very little self-consciousness as a focal point, a juncture, a mere vessel—in short, a
medium
—whereby children spoke with their long-deceased parents, and widows communed with their dead husbands, and secrets were revealed, and tales told, and posthumous explanations for inexplicable behavior given, of a sort that, in nearly every instance,
no one living might have known beforehand.

The séance attended in secret by Mrs. Zinn and Octavia, at 2 Fifth Avenue, was typical of Deirdre's early successes; tho' initially, as we have seen, the atmosphere was unsettled by the pranks of a malevolent spirit, doubtless
Zachariah
(this spirit being loos'd as a consequence of the emotional tension emanating from Mrs. Zinn and her daughter—however ignorant Deirdre herself was of their presence): hence the rappings, floating lights, music, and other tomfoolery. The wicked spirit being routed, however, by the mature spirits
Mrs. Dodd
and
Father Darien,
a period of relative calm was achieved, and the proceedings were wondrously rewarding, as all testified afterward. Amongst those who enjoyed the privilege of speaking with deceased family members, some of whom death had divided for more than fifty years, was a female descendant of Aaron Burr, who was assured by that gentleman that, while guilty as charged of certain political machinations, he was altogether innocent of the libelous statements published by the New York Federalists, as to his wiles as a
seducer:
indeed, his sojourn in Spirit World had convinced him that celibacy is the highest state known to man or angel! Another distinguished participant was Congressman Wallace G. Tunstall, a pork-bodied gentleman with shiny red cheeks and glaring eyes, who did not scruple to weep unashamedly, when addressed by the spirit of his lost, English-born cousin J. H. Tunstall, murdered in 1878 on his Felix River ranch in notorious Lincoln County, New Mexico—the very Tunstall who was later to be revenged, a hundredfold, by the actions of his loyal young employee William Bonney (which is to say,
Billy the Kid
). J. H. Tunstall communicated to Congressman Tunstall the fact that a considerable fortune in silver and gold was buried at a certain fork in the Felix River, and untouched to that very day: this fortune belonging by moral as well as legal rights to no one more deservedly than him. After giving elaborate instructions as to the location of the treasure, which Congressman Tunstall, for weeping, could barely transcribe, the deceased cousin went on to speak, in his charming British accent, of the New Mexico terrain, with such vehemence, and such great love, that the brilliant sunrises, and chill hovering mists, and the cactus flowers of early April, and the very
air
itself, so clear! so sharp!—were most miraculously, and convincingly, present, in lower Fifth Avenue, of this bustling city.

Nor did the impassioned spirit pause, at this, but continued to speak of his transmogrified state: “You see, my dear Wally, it is nothing more than
crossing over.
I cannot put it more succinctly, or more accurately—
crossing over.
When your time is imminent, Wally, you will have naught to do, but extend your hand: and I shall be there to help: and the mortal scales will fall from your eyes, with great alacrity, I can promise! For only consider: I am here now, tho' perhaps
not visible
to you, as a consequence of intrinsic weakness of vision, amongst mortals: yet I am here, I assure you, and able to communicate with you, with no great difficulty; and you can communicate with me; and there is nothing mysterious, or repugnant, or frightening, about it, for it is but a
crossing over
—” whereupon the voice, which exuded such gratifying confidence, began suddenly to fade, and in a moment was lost, to leave in its wake a shocked hush, and the sound of divers weeping: which did not exclude, so moving had the testimony of the deceased Englishman been, even the much-experienced
chela
Hassan Agha!

Perhaps it was not amazing, to Spiritualist believers and adepts, that the Tunstall treasure was located in
precisely the spot,
that the spirit had promised it: but I am bound to say that it was amazing to others, of a more skeptical nature; and it continues to amaze, and perplex, and, indeed,
disturb,
this faithful chronicler.

For such curious
coincidences,
if they may be thusly termed, were by no means remarkable in the course of Deirdre's mediumship, but came to be quite habitual.

“How, may I ask, does your charming friend accomplish it?” Thus the query was put, ofttimes with a rude conspiratorial wink, to Madame Blavatsky, who, it must be said, enjoyed immensely a
man-to-man
rapport with the most worldly, and the most cynical, of gentlemen, not excluding journalists. “You may confide in me, Madame,” it was commonly said, “for, I swear under oath, I give you my absolute word, I shall not reveal your
secret.
It is simply that my curiosity is so prick'd, I can scarce sleep at night, for a tumult of thought, and speculation, as to how you and the charming young lady accomplish your
craft:
for thus I call it, and not
trickery,
as others have charged.”