A Bloodsmoor Romance (83 page)

Hearing these impetuous words, Deirdre cast upon her interlocutor a gaze radiant—nay, fiery—with maidenly disdain. And, rising with great dignity from her chair, she said: “What,
wife,
and
helpmeet,
and
mother!
And did you say
sacred
as well, Dr. Stoughton? Ah, it is too amusing:
sacred!
”

Dr. Stoughton rose with clumsy alacrity from his seat, and would have tendered his apologies, for having spoke, as it were, rather
too
bluntly, but the haughty young lady inquired of him: “And is
your
wife, Dr. Stoughton, so joyously fulfilled as to her sex, and so ecstatically immersed in the sacred duties of her lot, as to speak with equal passion of that fate, as
you
have done? Would that she were here to bear witness!”

“I have no wife,” Dr. Stoughton murmured, “I am unmarried.”

Again the low laughter sounded, and a sourceless sibilancy issued from out the very air; and the gas jets coquettishly quavered. And Deirdre, in some apprehension that her mischievous spirits would rush forward, to make a shambles of the office, and of Dr. Stoughton's strained composure, betook herself to the door, the dignity of her small erect carriage reflecting none of the emotion she felt—neither the angry amusement, nor the pain. Yet she could not resist a parting remark, uttered in a low and falsely genteel voice, the which I record only with hesitation, for it bespeaks a sensibility formed neither by that devout Christian couple Mr. and Mrs. Bonner, nor by the Zinns, and is, indeed, a libel upon her Bloodsmoor background itself! “I am deeply grateful for your suggestion, Dr. Stoughton, uttered out of that special reservoir of wisdom that is yours, both as a consequence of your profession in life, and your maleness: but you will forgive me, if I demur, in that I much prefer intercourse with the Spirits.”

SIXTY-TWO

T
ho' it was not until the autumn of 1895, after the successful, albeit difficult, exorcism of a malicious spirit, from out an old country manor in Fishkill, New York, that Deirdre of the Shadows was forced to retire from her mediumship, I am hardly amiss in stating that the
seeds
of the young woman's destruction were sown many years earlier: I am almost tempted, alas, to say,
upon the very day of her birth!

(By which I do not mean solely that that birth, in the autumn of 1863, had been perhaps more shrouded in mystery, and shame, than we would care to think: I mean in addition that, God's infinite love and mercy notwithstanding, and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ operative at all times, there do seem to be, in our fallen world, souls distinctly
marked
for sin, and consequently for sorrow, from the first instant of drawing breath. No doubt this is what the Christian religion means by Original Sin: and yet, why are some of us joyously freed from its taint, by God's grace, and Jesus' love, while others remain damn'd? A profound mystery here, the which has been explained patiently to me, many a time, by gracious men of the cloth—yet, the frailty of my sex being as evident in me, as in my untutor'd sisters, I am bound to confess that I have never understood; and, at my hallowed age, it is unlikely that I ever will.)

Yes, O Reader, speculate a moment with me, and consider: had Deirdre any intimate companions who valued her, and respected her; had she, let us say, the sweet solace of a loving and devoted
sister,
or even a
brotherly
guide, it is possible that her pathetic collapse in the wilds of Fishkill might have been averted. (“Pathetic,” I say, and not “tragic,” for one must consider the circumstances of the breakdown, and the caliber of the young woman's moral character.) And yet—if we recall Deirdre's lifelong perversity of will, and her spiteful insistence upon going her own way, I very much doubt that even a sister with the infinite well of sympathy of Octavia Zinn, or a brotherly guide with the steadfast integrity of handsome young Dr. Stoughton, might have saved the headstrong creature from her fate: a fate easily the equivalent in horror, and in degradation, to the loss of maidenhood itself: by which I mean
the loss of sanity.

 

IT HAPPENED THAT
less than a twelve-month after the exchange with Dr. Stoughton, that gentleman of surpassing integrity, and Christian compassion, Deirdre boldly betook herself in 1891 to the historic Old World of Europe: and there, traveling with a modest entourage of less than ten persons, the American medium enjoyed a continued success, and was fulsomely rewarded, with both praise from her numerous clients, and money and gifts. In Paris, in Munich, in Vienna, in Zurich, in Rome: in the sunny clime of the South of France, in the beauteous chivalric mountains of Old Spain, in the snowy-white Alpine heights of Switzerland, along the magnificent castle-haunted rivers of Germany, in the graceful albeit melancholy city of Prague, and the tragic city of Warsaw: in that city of incomparable gaiety, charm, picturesque palaces and cathedrals, and steep hills, Buda-Pest, risen like a fairy city on the placid Danube: and even in exotic Turkey, abode of mosque and seraglio!—know, O sympathetic reader, the little American medium found herself most welcome, her fame having been hawked before her, by Spiritualist compatriots in these foreign climes.

Deirdre of the Shadows was reported to have been a houseguest for several weeks of Count János Krúdy, in his great castle on the gloomily picturesque Lake Balaton, in Hungary; and of the Duke and Duchess of Belle­garde, at their country estate in Provence; and of the wealthy shipowning family the Björkös, of Old Uppsala, Sweden. Lord and Lady Kellynch, of Kellynch Hall, Sussex, were said to have been enormously gratified, by the aid of Deirdre of the Shadows, in their communications with their son, lost on a voyage to India: as were the Ingolstadts of Gondol, who had lost a belovèd daughter some years previously: and the Szczyrks of Warsaw, whose anguish at the loss of a belovèd wife and mother, quite overcame their Catholic repugnance for “witchery” and “sorcery.”

It was noted by all, believers and detractors alike, that Deirdre of the Shadows, with her stark, blackly-burning eyes, and her near-translucent skin, and her hushed voice, appeared rather more a spirit herself, than a young woman of some twenty-odd years of age: and that, whether mesmerist, or ventriloquist, or magician, or genuine psychic, she was so clearly convinced of her occult powers, and so totally absorbed by them, the most contemptuously savage of skeptics could not wish to accuse her of fraud. “How wraithlike!—how pallid! She is an angel-emissary, surely,” Lady Kellynch was said to have exclaimed, “and yet, the singular curse of
being
her!”

 

IT WAS DURING
this ambitious, and greatly exhausting, European tour that Deirdre began to take note of an alteration, at first so subtle as to be near-imperceptible, in the contact spirits' manner: in both the timbre of their voices, and the messages they conveyed.
Mrs. Dodd
had long since vanish'd, it is to be supposed as a consequence of her son's misfortune, and his “crossing over” into Spirit World; yet
Father Darien,
so generally sober, and wise, and, indeed, fatherly, succumbed upon some occasions to an unexpected testiness, and revealed a most surprising bellicose tone. (The saintly Jesuit had become, Deirdre gathered, to her amaz'd puzzlement, somewhat anti-Catholic in tone!—for, it seemed, the “Popish harlequinade,” to use
Father Darien
's own phrase, was a grave disappointment beyond the Earth Plane: there being, evidently, not a whit of truth to its confident assertions, throughout the centuries, regarding the entire pantheon of saints, Popes, and Mary herself.) Puckish
Zachariah
was no less problematic, and quick to take advantage of the other spirits' indecisiveness, or the medium's exhaustion; but, added to this, was an increased malevolent hysteria to his behavior, as if he were no longer capable of controlling his caprices, but quite at the mercy of a demonic pleasure in playing all sorts of tiresome pranks, such as a naughty twelve-year-old boy might conceive of; and in muttering, and cursing, and babbling incoherent threats against his enemies “in both worlds.”

There had appeared, it was true, a new, and gentle, spirit identified only as
Sarah,
possessed of so frail and tremulous a voice, and, in general, so undependable as to her aid to the medium, that one might presume her to be extremely elderly: albeit a lady of obvious grace and breeding. And, from time to time, a
Red Indian
emerged from out the cacophonous murmurings, bearing with him, fortunately, no ill-will for the race of white men, and blessed with a surprising command of the English language; and there was a
royal son of
Thebes,
and a
lost Czarina,
and, infrequently, the loving
Mrs. Bonner
herself—but so very faint, Deirdre could rarely determine the sound, let alone the sense, of her words. These were, it might be said, “helpful” spirits: but there were others who were less helpful, indeed mercurial and alarming, among them
Bianca
(who had dramatically changed from her impish state, and was now a shrill and even sluttish girl of some fourteen years of age, noisy with apocalyptic mutterings of the “Great Cataclysm” ahead); and one
Margaret Fuller
(so choked with rage, she could scarce express herself: save to warn that
Man
-kind—by which she meant the entire masculine gender!—would soon reap the harvest they most deserved, by the terrible year 1900); and the
Raging Captain,
whose bullying manner, and incontinent imprecations, earned him, one storm-toss'd eve in Buda-Pest, a vicious response from his fellow spirits:
Zachariah
in particular, tho' with the aid of a hot-tempered
Father Darien,
and a shrill-laughing
Bianca,
administering to that contumacious shade so severe a beating, as to render him silenced forever!—to the relief of the exhausted young medium, whose head pounded with these invisible battles, and whose sensitive nerves so rang, that, after the most disorderly of sittings, the balm that “knits up the ravell'd sleave of care” would not descend upon her for as long as eighteen, or even twenty-four, desolate hours.

And, on the rain-streaked night of May 8, 1891, a grotesque and altogether unlook'd-for episode occurred: in the midst of a tearful but nobly restrained reunion between the ninety-year-old Baroness Ambaaren of the Norwegian fortress-town of Otterholm, and her deceased spouse, who had died, as a consequence of galloping consumption, at the age of twenty-eight, there suddenly intruded—with what coarse effect, both buffoonish and painful, in the midst of the Baroness's drawing room, the sensitive reader can well imagine!—a familiar female voice of singular stridency: throaty, rudely jocose, slyly insinuating: the very voice, unmistakable, of
Madame Blavatsky!

Madame
's remarks, some of which had to do with “enemies,” and “pernicious detractors,” and the “Great Conflagration” to be visited upon the globe with the advent of the new century, were not entirely coherent: for the poor creature was at that time suffering from the dislocation of “crossing over” (having died but that afternoon, in her sickbed in a patroness's home in London). She laughed hoarsely; and uttered one or two ribald comments on “rascal celibates”—perhaps in reference to
Father Darien,
who was trying to restrain her; and chided Deirdre for her cruelty, and “maidenly cunning”; and railed at some length against the apostate
chela
Hassan Agha, who had, evidently, defected in Madras, reverting to the “bloodless Low Church Anglicanism” of his mother. This shrewish interruption of a poignant love-exchange betwixt the Baroness and the Baron was, of course, most unfortunate: unfortunate, too, was the fact that Deirdre, sunk deeply in trance, her opened eyes glassy and her pulses but faintly beating, was in the painful position of being aware of
Madame Blavatsky
's mischief, whilst being at the same time totally powerless to curtail it!

After some minutes of great confusion, Madame's spirit was satisfactorily subdued, and vanquish'd by the others; and the séance continued with no further disturbances. But the mischief
had
been done, and it was quite some time—upward of two hours, in fact—before the affrighted spirit of the long-deceased Baron could be coaxed into resuming the dialogue with his widow. (Poor Madame Blavatsky! She had, it seemed, never truly forgiven her Lolo for having rejected her; and had been quick to imagine, or to perceive, a most subtle attraction between Deirdre of the Shadows and the comely young
chela.
Grave financial problems had attended her Indian pilgrimage, and not a few embarrassing episodes, too tedious here to recount; and, returning to Europe, she eventually settled in the Avenue Road house of a London Theosophist, who tended to her, until her death by way of heart trouble, rheumatism, influenza, and Bright's disease, on that May afternoon of 1891. Along with the rather more gracious William James, who died in 1910, “Madame B.,” as she came to be called, was the most familiar of all famous spirits who found their way, unbidden, into séances in America. But the uncouth Russian immigrant never sufficiently mastered our great language, as to be capable of communicating, with the forcefulness she desired!)

 

THESE NUMEROUS STARTLING—INDEED,
frequently terrifying—séances did not, as the reasonable observer might suspect, bring upon Deirdre of the Shadows anything more than a negligible disapprobation: but did in fact (alas, the folly of the times!) so fan the desire to witness them, on the part of even the most genteel of Spiritualists, that Deirdre and her associates had all they could do to deal with demands for sittings—and to deal with the angry disappointment (oft shading into bizarre expressions of threat) of those whose petitions were denied.