A Bloodsmoor Romance (90 page)

SIXTY-EIGHT

T
ho' the career of the genius-inventor John Quincy Zinn had at last begun to flourish, in the closing years of our glorious century, it is no secret to us, his intimates, that, in his injur'd father's heart, he had to contend with the memories of his treacherous daughters, the which haunted him nightly; nor were the cruel wounds soothed, even by Mrs. Zinn's scrupulous action, in casting unopened into the fire, immediately upon receipt, those two or three letters sent by Samantha—from some commonplace address in the “wide world,” of little significance here.

Thus, it may have been as a consequence of private brooding, upon these losses, or, the inevitable effects of overwork, which, more frequently than ever in his life, left him unclear in his mind, when engaged in conversational intercourse of a lightsome social nature: or, it may even have been as a confus'd consequence of his grandfatherly grief, for the tragic loss of Little Godfrey: or (for who can plumb the depths of another's heart!) it may have been an expression of simple thoughtless nostalgia, for all the furry little creature had represented, reaching back to that wedding morn of 1855, when every songbird seemed to cry
Romance!
and every flowery countenance seemed to smile
Romance!
and, indeed, all the world thrilled, and wept, and lifted a gladsome choral voice
Romance!
—the wedding morn, that is, of the maiden Prudence Kidde­master, and the blushing young gentleman John Quincy Zinn. Ah!—we cannot know; we cannot say.

Only that, some five or six days after the funeral of Little Godfrey, J.Q.Z., distracted, and stroking at his long beard, glanced up from his uneaten midday meal, to fix upon Mrs. Zinn a brooding and half-reproachful gaze, and to murmur, all but inaudibly:
“Yet Pip too must be mourned.”

IX

“Adieu! 'Tis Love's Last Greeting”

SIXTY-NINE

And years flew by, and the tale at last

Was told as a joyful one, long past.

—S. L. SEABRIGHT-BOUGH

T
hrough these many difficult months, in transcribing so labyrinthine a chronicle, it has been my task, and my modest hope, to both allow the reader some small sense of its
contours,
clear, forthright, and, it is to be hoped, unconfus'd; and to allow him to savor, out of the generous bounty of the Zinns' and Kidde­masters' family histories, a sense of its profusion of
detail
—the which, numerous as the blooms in flowery Bloodsmoor, have, I confess, quite enthralled me, and have given me many hours of meditative—nay, brooding—puzzlement: as to whether our mortal lives here on earth most candidly reveal themselves
from a distance,
discernible only to the objective, or Godly, eye; or whether they reveal themselves solely
as they are experienced,
which is to say, in finite parcels of time, weeks, days, hours, and minutes!

Oft have I ponder'd: ah, and would I not have greatly rejoiced, if, for a scant hour, I might have sat at the knee of Mr. Zinn, to put these questions to him, who dedicated his life to such philosophical puzzles! Tho', doubtless, my frail female capabilities, in such areas of mental wizardry, might have taxed his patience; and excited some pity; and bafflement. (For, in the final years of this distinguished man's life, waning, as it did, with the century, he was frequently in so remote a world of ratiocination, as to return but reluctantly to
this
world: where even his workshop came to seem to him, as he expressed it, “insubstantial”—and unreal, and lonely as well, the irksome little spider monkey being gone forever, and no assistants being desired, after the treachery of Samantha and Nahum.)

Alas—this is not a privilege allowed me: nor am I entirely able to grasp, after many perusals, J.Q.Z.'s intricately worded response to that curious work by Mr. H. G. Wells,
The Time Machine,
Mr. Zinn's monograph being entitled, “On the Probability (And Impossibility) of Time-Travel,” and appearing in a philosophical journal, in March of 1896.

In any case, the authoress's solemn task being, then, to mediate between
contour,
and
detail,
I am bound to confess that, as my Bloodsmoor history draws to its appoint'd close (not many seconds before the initial stroke of midnight, of December 31, 1899), I find myself the more beleaguered, by all that, for purposes of
brevity,
I must omit: by all that enthralling multitudinousness, of weeks, days, hours, and minutes, which the Zinns experienced
as their lives.
Ah, to omit—to be forced to omit!—so very much: to awake in the midst of the night, my poor head ringing, and clattering, and clamoring, with the vociferous demands of a dream-double, of Samantha, or Mrs. Zinn, or Charles Guiteau, or the Baron, or Pip, or “Mark Twain,” or Little Godfrey, or “Malvinia Morloch” that was, or “Deirdre of the Shadows” that was!—to the effect that, I have not done the complexities of their souls
justice,
and, in shaping them to the contours suggested, by a labyrinthine profusion of others' lives, I have, in fact,
betrayed them,
who entrusted their beings to me.

That
A Bloodsmoor Romance
presents itself, with humility, and hope, as an allegorical—indeed, exemplary—narrative, I should be very foolish to wish to deny; that its numerous personages are instructively enjoined, as to most clearly lend themselves, to
moral interpretation,
I can but affirm. In so doing, however, I am not conscious of having betrayed the individuals who discover themselves herein—and make my plea to them, that, the capacities of readers, no less than of authors, being resolutely finite, I am obliged to continue with my general favoring of
contour.

(Which is to say, that tho' not one of the personages described herein, would consent to naming himself, let alone interpreting himself, as an
allegorical figure,
nonetheless it is necessary for me, as the historian of these proceedings, and, it may be, as the judge thereof—to the limited extent to which, of course, a member of my sex may be considered a
judge,
that position being by hallowed tradition a masculine prerogative!—it is necessary, I fully believe, for me to extract what is
exemplary,
rather than what is merely
idiosyncratic,
and
eccentric,
from these individual lives, in order that a wholesome moral lesson may be drawn.)

Thus, I choose in this brief introductory space, to speak of the
contour
of the concluding book, which will take us from January 28, 1899, to the very end of that tumultuous year; and from a place in San Francisco, which no lady might wish to enter, even were she allowed entry, back home to Bloodsmoor—the which, I hardly need stress, I have never truly left, in spirit. The reader shall become reacquainted with those Zinn daughters who, it might have been thought, had so violated the customs of propriety, good sense, and daughterly obligation, as to be lost—indeed,
damn'd
—forever: reacquainted, and, it is hoped, sufficiently stirred, by the compassionate motions of Christian charity, as to rejoice in the numerous
reconciliations
that Fate saw fit to decree, in these final months of our century. That those Zinn sisters who have abandoned their parents, and the domestic hearth, in order to plunge into the wide world, find their divers ways back home, I take to be a triumphant affirmation of God's grace—operative, as it is, in ways so o'ersubtle, as to beggar our human comprehension.

SEVENTY

I
shrink from the scene, which it is my oppressive task, to now convey: and I beg the reader's indulgence, both for my timorousness, and for the unwholesome—indeed, loathsome—nature, of what follows.

For we are to be plung'd into the
vile, unnatural,
and altogether
morbid.
Nor are the details, of a physiological kind, completely clear.

Indeed, upon rising from a night of troubl'd dreams, yesterday morn, I had fully hoped to plunge at once into this chapter, despite my wanness of countenance, and a deep revulsion of the soul. It had been my authorial strategy to thus introduce, as the very first note in this concluding book, both the central issue (the astonishing Last Will and Testament of Miss Edwina Kidde­master, and the yet more astonishing “Confession of a Penurious Sinner,” by the selfsame hand), and the issue of “Mr. Philippe Fox,” which has long dismayed me, for reasons soon to be made evident. Yet such was my repugnance for “Mr. Fox,” or, “Constance Philippa Zinn” that was, that, not trusting my enfeebl'd powers, I turned my pen to other, more general concerns, the which I hope have proved instructive to the reader, the while they have allowed me some measure of restorative time. But, “Haste, ere the gathered shades/ Fall on thee from the tomb where none may work,” as Mrs. Sigourney reminds us!—and I must now confront my long-dreaded task.

Indeed, I am bound to confess here that I have, upon several occasions, shrunk from taking up this strand, in my intricate fancywork, out of that timidity of my sex, that has rendered us so generally unfit for the creation of great works, like those by Mr. Dickens and Mr. Balzac, and, in our own clime, Mr. Melville—a timidity that has its unapologetic basis in natural
ignorance,
and
innocence,
of the cruder aspects of life: and a gracious wish that naught but “rainbows of unearthly joy” (to quote Mrs. Sigourney once more) irradiate our literary attempts, as, it is devoutly hoped, they irradiate our lives.

 

THE SCENE, WHICH
I hope will not offend your sensibilities, to envision, is the dim-lit and murmurous
gentleman's bar,
in the sumptuous Baldwin Hotel of San Francisco: one of those much-priz'd sanctuaries of the confirmed hedonist, to whom it is not uncommon to wish to repair to even by day, in order to partake of those excesses of alcoholic consumption, to which such personages have abandoned themselves. Here, amidst gilded, mirrored, tessellated, polished, and glittering splendor, of the most ostentatious sort, repulsive to the healthful mind, gentlemen of divers backgrounds commingle: imbibing such spirits as bourbon, whisky, gin, vodka, rum, brandy, and liqueurs of every imaginable species, all the while giving license to their gluttonous inclinations, by devouring such delicacies as smoked oysters, and squid, and buttered snails.

As our eyes become accustom'd to the smoke-hued dimness, we observe a lone gentleman standing at the far end of the bar, reading a copy of the San Francisco
Ledger,
which he has just found, discarded, beside him. It is difficult to judge the gentleman's age, whether he be fairly youthful, as his manner suggests; or well into his thirties, as the graying hair at his attractive temples would indicate. He is smooth-chinned, and sports not the smallest hint of a mustache: indeed, there is a pleasing
softness
to his complexion, which not even the sun's insistent rays, and his own frequent scowls, have been able to mitigate. Tho' his clothing is not altogether fresh, and might in fact have been worn for several days, it is of evident quality, and not greatly out of place here at the Baldwin, where men of wealth commonly stay: a white linen shirt with ruffled cuffs; a dress-suit of fine dove-gray broadcloth; a waistcoat patterned in gilt arabesques; a black Western string tie; a pearl lapel-pin. At his elbow lies a pair of well-worn pigskin gloves; and he has brought into the bar with him a broad-brimmed white wool hat, redolent of the Southwest. His cowhide boots are custom-made, sporting remarkable two-inch heels (with the desir'd result, that he is agreeably tall, and possesses, despite his lithe frame, an air of swaggering menace).

A
snakelike
sinuousness informs his being, yet, withal, he is comely enough, and intriguing enough, to both attract and repel the eye of the casual observer. Is he uncommonly handsome, with his marble brow, and his exquisitely sculpted lips, and his sly, deepset, dark-lashed eyes, which move boldly about? Does he give an impression of cunning, rather than of sinewy masculine strength; and of the dandified, rather than the forthright and robust? Is his manner stealthful? Might his fashionable gray coat hide a pistol, carried in secret? Might he be a well-to-do Eastern gentleman, of good breeding; or might he have sprung from the lowest level of society? Is he one of those numerous young men who are “with the government,” or “with the railroads,” or “with the law”? Is he a wandering journalist, a bigamist in flight, a gambler, a cardshark, a gold prospector, a “law enforcement officer,” a bankrupt, an outlaw, a murderer, a “desperado”? When he addresses the bartender he reveals an accent that might well be Eastern, yet o'erlaid with an emphatic Western twang: but whether this be natural, or mere affectation, is not clear.

Despite the gentleman's evident wish for privacy, and even secrecy, there is something resolutely impudent, and even reckless, about his manner: as he lights a small thin Mexican cigar, and continues to peruse the newspaper, impatiently scanning the columns, the while muttering and laughing contemptuously under his breath.

Until, of a sudden, quite by accident, his eye fell upon this item, the which so startl'd him, the cigar nearly slipped from his fingers, and he murmured aloud:
“Her—!”

ESTEEMED AUTHORESS MISS EDWINA KIDDEMASTER DIES

UNUSUAL STIPULATIONS SAID TO COMPLICATE WILL

With great rapidity the slim-bodied gentleman read this news item, which, I am sorry to report, did not receive, from the
Ledger,
the amount of space so solemn an event surely deserved: nor was its placement, on page 17, in the midst of numerous other obituaries, of unknown persons, sufficiently respectful, in terms of our loss to American letters. But, tho' abrupt, and composed in a singularly graceless style, the article contained no distortions; and from it, the increasingly agitated gentleman learned the following facts: that Miss Edwina Kidde­master had succumbed to a brief illness, and died, at her ancestral home in Bloodsmoor, Pennsylvania, at the age of seventy-eight; that she had authored “upward of seventy works, pertaining to moral, domestic, and religious subjects, the which, sold by subscription, were read and cherished by millions of Americans”; that her “sorrowful passing,” in the words of Mrs. S. T. Martyn, the editress of
The Ladies' Wreath,
“is a cause of great mourning, amongst her devoted readership, the more so in that it is unlikely—nay, it is impossible—that our nation will ever see Miss Edwina Kidde­master's equal again, in the troubl'd years to come.” There was some unnecessary comment on the curiosity that Miss Kidde­master had, in recent years, become litiginous, bringing suit not only against “rival etiquettresses” who, she claimed, had “appropriated” her teachings, and “capitalized shamelessly” on them, but against her publisher as well, who, in her opinion, and in the opinion of her legal advisors, “had failed to advertise her most recent book,
The Hearthside Guide for Young Christian Wives,
and to satisfactorily sell it,” with the consequence that, in the first twelve-month period, the volume had sold only eighty-four thousand copies, a grave disappointment to the authoress.