A Bloodsmoor Romance (17 page)

“Surely there is no one like you, elsewhere in the world,” John Quincy Zinn averred blushingly, to Prudence. “I mean you, and your family, and the esteemed circle, of which you are a part. Such generosity, such support, such boundless hospitality! I see now that the first two decades, and more, of my life, were spent in a sort of exile, in the remote hills above the Brandywine. But you must have pity on me, Miss Kidde­master, for I am very slow to conform, to this newer-paced life.”

How arresting his presence!
Thus Prudence confided to her diary, in the nocturnal secrecy of her bedchamber: —
his high proud head bespeaking a native aristocracy, born of Nature, and not Custom; his hair so fair, and so thick, and so wavy; his beard blond, and rich.
(
And do not a very few silver hairs therein glint? With a most patrician aspect!) His teeth perhaps lack perfect whiteness, yet they appear large, and strong, and engaging in their irregularity, proclaiming, as it were, a sort of rude animal health. His speaking voice is most unusual, and has been remarked upon, by admirers and detractors alike, as partaking of the grave ceremoniousness of a man of the cloth, of the preaching variety: yet herein, I believe, lies his power: and it is not to be scorned. The trifling birthmark at his temple, shaped like a very small dagger (if one gives way to fancy!—for of course the blemish is naught but an inch in length, or less, and does not truly represent any object)—this intensification, as it were, of the natural ruddiness of his skin, whilst it struck my eye at first as disfiguring, now “strikes” it not at all—or with an agreeable cast.
She paused, to allow her tumultuous heart to calm itself, and dipped her quill in ink, wondering if she should register some complaint, to her diary, of Mr. Zinn's sartorial inclinations, for his dark-hued frock coat, of indeterminate age and fashion, and his peculiar headgear (possessing the shape, somewhat dashed, of a bell), and his clean, but crudely ironed linen, and his rundown “farmer's” boots—and, most offensive of all, his black sateen cravat, so ludicrously “formal,” and so dismayingly greasy!—did somewhat detract from the charm of the young man's healthful countenance, and his tall muscular frame. She paused, and breathed heavily, and wrote:
That John Quincy Zinn pridefully scorns the exigencies of fashion, I believe to be entirely to his credit.

 

BUT WHEN WOULD
he propose?

When would he (with what blushing diffidence, Prudence could well envision) make his stammered request, for a private audience with Judge Kidde­master? For the months passed; and the seasons; and tho' Miss Prudence Kiddemaster and Mr. John Quincy Zinn were very frequently in each other's company; and in many eyes it was assumed that a courtship of some kind was indeed in progress; and sentiment daily increased on both sides, having passed well beyond mutual regard, and moving toward outright passion—yet
Mr. Zinn did not speak.

Unhappy Prudence slept but fitfully, and suffered a diminution of appetite so visible, all the family took note: and Aunt Edwina, in particular, made comment.
If I doubt John Quincy,
Prudence bethought herself,
I must doubt myself: nay, the very integrity of the reveal'd Universe!

They were together upward of a half-dozen times a week, by Prudence's estimation. Ofttimes they strolled together, with no chaperon, on Burlingame Street, and Frothingham Square, and even in Cobbett Park; and attended the theater, and even the opera, upon several occasions. (These events being altogether new to Mr. Zinn—and quite dazzling, indeed, to his rustic eye; tho' he could not help, as he said, estimating the cost of such luxuriant entertainment, and the needless expenditure of time, on the part of the audiences.) At the Arcadia Club evenings, they warmly debated, and laughed companionably, and it was surely noted by the others, how handsome a couple they were, both of an uncommon height for their respective sexes, and large-framed, and possessed of commandeering gestures; and, of course, of exceptional intelligence.
Yet he does not speak,
Prudence unhappily wrote,
tho' it is clear that he esteems me highly, and perhaps loves me. He says a great deal (so very eloquently!) and yet—he does not speak.

 

AH, THOSE DAYS
! Those turbulent days! Abolitionists of every hue—some genteel, and civil, and of good family; some near-rabid, in their murderous rages, against the slaveholding South. Reformers of society; and woman Suffragettes (possessed of so unnatural a vehemence, and so little modesty, they did their cause scant good, and surely deserved the jeers and abuse visited upon them); and orators of the “Go Ahead” persuasion, who preached that the nation should not give a whit about slavery, “whether it is voted up, or voted down,” but continue to expand throughout the Western Hemisphere. The cause of Popular Sovereignty, and the cause of Militant Temperance, and charismatic John Quincy Zinn lecturing at the lyceum, or at Cobbett Square Church (his initial series being so successful, he was recalled for a second season), on the need for radical reform in
Spirit,
in America—this reform, or revolution, then giving way to innumerable small transformations, which would raise our civilization to the height, for which it was destined.

“What we perceive as
Evil
is naught but
Disorder,
” John Quincy Zinn instructed his attentive audiences, “and what our eyes perceive as
Disorder,
is naught but
Order,
unclearly apprehended.” The lyceum audiences, being well educated, and of a literary and philosophical turn of mind, were greatly moved by the young schoolmaster's assertion that their children, possessing pristine souls, already knew all fundamental truths—so that their teachers, in all humility, and employing the new
Socratic method,
were but skilled instruments in drawing them out. He oft reiterated his bold declaration, from
Out of the Mouths of Babes,
to the effect that,
The child knows, what the Teacher must recover.
For the old way of rote-teaching must be banish'd; and all old textbooks, crammed with dead, spiritless facts; and, as well, all teachers who clung to the old ways and did not truly love both their charges, and Wisdom itself.

John Quincy Zinn's experimental class at the Brownrrigg Academy did not sit inertly in their seats, but moved freely about, and were encouraged by their teacher to participate in divers conversations, and to ask a good deal of questions. They studied poesy not by committing verse to memory, but by
writing it;
they became disciplined in the exacting art of perception, by
drawing
(with many comical, but surely instructive, results); they were encouraged to invent new words, and new ways of spelling old words—for our great English tongue, as John Quincy taught, is itself a massive machine, an invention of sorts, in which all must participate. They learned geography by applying themselves to actual mapmaking, and anatomy, by studying the skeletons of real animals. Mr. Zinn being a firm believer in manual labor and dexterity, it was necessary that his young charges—girls no less than boys—acquire the use of hammers, saws, files, and planes, and other homely instruments, scorned by the genteel classes. Singly, or in small teams, these amazing children worked on their own machines, and experimented with weights and measurements, and pulleys, and wheels, and water, and fire, and rapid changes of temperature, and direct and indirect sunlight, and the relative buoyancy of feathers, pebbles, blocks of wood, grass, snow, and nails. They designed dirigibles, and submarines, and ideal dwelling places, and model cities. For
Invention,
Mr. Zinn taught, is at the very heart of the Universe, and the especial secret of our great Nation, yet but dimly understood by the rest of the world.

It was Mr. Zinn's fervent belief that all Americans should wish to participate, to the degree of their capability, in the invention of the most remarkable civilization ever to appear on earth: nay, are we not the very civilization,
for which the earth was created?
“Our United States has naught to do with the Old, but only with the New,” John Quincy passionately averred, “for, as Mr. Thoreau has said, ‘Eternity culminates in the present moment.' We are a New World, of questions and questers; visions, improvisations, and bold experiments; in short, a living
invention.
If I declare myself an American citizen, am I not also an inventor?—for it is our collective destiny, and must be God's will.”

Thus the flavor, and the general content, of the young man's public addresses, the which continued to be greeted with exuberant applause, and respectful notices in most of the papers, and an enthusiasm of such wide-ranging aspect, that it was not surprising that the children of such illustrious Americans as Commodore Matthew Perry and Mr. Horace Greeley, and Edwin Booth, were enrolled at the Brownrrigg Academy, to be the pupils, for a time, of the radical young schoolmaster.

 

YET WHY DOES
he not speak?
the wretched young woman queried her heart.
Alas, will he not speak?

TWELVE

H
ow astonished the young Zinn sisters would be, to learn that their beloved mother—now so stout, and so matronly, and so grimly practical in her expert housewifery—had once been a fainting, weeping, obsessed young woman!—and the stern-visagèd Mrs. Zinn (who commanded much respect, and not a little trepidation, in the Octagonal House), but a tremulous Miss Kidde­master, to her shame o'erwhelmed by bitter thoughts directed against her rivals.

For there was not only
Miss Parthenope Violette Brownrrigg,
and
Miss Evangeline Ferris,
but also Vice-Admiral Triem's pretty daughter
Rachel,
and
Miss Honora LeBeau,
and one or two others commonly mentioned, as prospects for John Quincy Zinn.
Shall I live?
Prudence queried, of her puffy and humiliated mirror image.
Nay, can I live? For, if he chooses another, the shame of it shall o'ercome me.

Rumors flew throughout the city, blown gustily by the winter wind, and piled deep with the fresh-fallen snow; and even if the sadly distraught Miss Kidde­master betook herself, of a weekend, to her family's country estate in Bloodsmoor, she could not escape certain cruel whisperings: some of which, I am sorry to say, were reported to her by her own cousins, with the pretense of charity. The Brownrriggs' strategic play for the young bachelor involved a formal dinner at which an English baronet was a guest, with some intelligent interest in “American science”; the Mignon Barfields (being the parents of Evangeline Ferris's widowed mother) threw open their fabled dining room, in austere Barfield Hall, that they might honor John Quincy Zinn, who could not know, Prudence thought, with some spiteful gratification, how rare were the Barfields' dinners, and how all of social Philadelphia would have prized an invitation! The Triems boldly made their play at a larger, and less formal dinner, at which (so it was reported to Prudence) John Quincy had quite shocked the company, by speaking of the significant differences in his employ at the Brownrrigg Academy, and his employ in Mouth-of-Lebanon: for, as the young man laughingly recounted, he had not only been obliged to chop firewood, and feed the stove, in his rural common school, but had acted as a carpenter, and a handyman, and a custodian of the outhouses—the which, as he explained, demanded a great deal of ingenuity, to be kept from stinking.

Poor Prudence was an unwilling spectator of Miss Honora LeBeau's play for Mr. Zinn's interest, and the degree of success of that play: for the Le­Beaus had evidently thought so little of her, as a rival, that they invited her and her family to the lavish reception that yearly marked the spring exhibit, at the Academy for the Fine Arts—Miss LeBeau's father being director of the Academy, and an esteemed portrait painter, in his own right. Ah, how it wounded Prudence to espy her beloved in conversational intercourse with the slender, ivory-skinned Honora!—that beauteous young woman being attired, for the occasion, in a new dress by Worth, many-tiered, and amazingly small at the waist (no more than eighteen inches, the unhappy Prudence reasoned: and
her
waist, these past several weeks, was ever growing thicker, and less amenable to her corset); a cambric ruff about her throat, and Mrs. LeBeau's famous emeralds in full display, all over her person, and a smile of such dazzling composure, and charm, that Prudence could not wonder at John Quincy's absorbed interest.

(Alas, so reckless had Prudence become, she ignored her mother's blandishments, and, alone, approached the smiling couple, that she might o'erhear their conversation. And how absurd that conversation was—and how transparent, and how shameful! For, it seemed, Honora had succeeded in engaging Mr. Zinn in a discussion of
balloon ascensions,
in France, particularly that of the aerostatic locomotive designed by Monsieur Petin, which had excited some attention in the press: and in which
Miss LeBeau had herself
been a most amaz'd passenger.
It fairly sickened Prudence to observe how John Quincy, failing to discern the base motive behind the young lady's conversation, listened with rapt and very flattering attention, and expressed a great deal of boyish interest in Monsieur Petin's remarkable design, consisting of three balloons of “goldbeater's skin” (made from the intestine of an ox!), of generous proportions, with propellers driven by steam, and wheels with articulated blades: none of which meant a great deal to Prudence, but seemed to, to John Quincy Zinn. For that young man summoned forth enough daring to say, that he would consider it a journey well spent, to travel to France for such an experience, tho', for the most part, he had no interest whatsoever in foreign climes, and could not imagine himself ever leaving his native shores. Whereupon coquettish Honora observed, with a skilled fluttering of her fan, that, her father being an “intimate acquaintance” of Monsieur Petin, it would be no trouble at all, for a lively ride in the air-locomotive to be arranged for Mr. Zinn. And all this transpired with no ironical sense, on John Quincy's part, that he was being boldly
manipulated!
Nay, the flush-faced Prudence thought, and to her shame I must record it,
seduced.
O Reader, you may well imagine, and pity, the ensuing sleepless night, endured by poor Prudence, after this most ignominious of occasions!)