A Bloodsmoor Romance (2 page)

 

THE MYSTERIOUS ABDUCTION
was perpetrated not by night, not even in the sombre-tentacl'd shadows of first dusk, but by daylight, and not many hundreds of yards from the white-column'd splendor of Kidde­master Hall. The young lady, it seems, wandered off alone, down the pleasingly gentle and picturesque slope of the grassy lawn, to the river below, quitting the company of her four elder sisters, who were sitting in a graceful little gazebo, a short distance from the rear of the great house. (Perhaps you know the Bloodsmoor River, and are familiar with its wide, placid waters, and the eurythmical grace of its motion, as it snakes its way, with no undue haste, through southeastern Pennsylvania: that scenic, that noble river, rivaling the mighty Hudson in its lissome grandeur and in the craggy heights of its granite promontories!—peaceable now, and, indeed, a solace to the wearied eye, though, not many decades previous, the great river suffered much bloodshed on its banks in the tragic War Between the States—Gettysburg being close by; and in numerous earlier skirmishes, harking back to the 1770's and '80's, and, beyond, to divers Tory atrocities, and mutinies amidst the common soldiery, and, in the 1650's, to the cruelties of the greedy Dutch against the Scandinavian pioneers who had made some small valiant effort to settle our Valley.)

Tho' there was to be disclosed, afterward, that Deirdre Louisa's willful absenting of herself from her sisters' company may have been partly the result of some trifling, girlish discord amongst them, and tho' even the most censorious heart cannot fail to feel pity for the child's fate, nonetheless it should be recorded that Deirdre's behavior on this autumn day, subsequent to a luxuriant high tea at the Hall, was characteristically perverse and exhibited that frequent want of gentility, and ladylike decorum, that had long stimulated compassionate dismay in the Zinn and Kidde­master families, and in certain of their kinfolk. “Prudence and John Quincy have perhaps o'erextended their Christian charity in so wantonly adopting an orphan of doubtful blood,” Great-Aunt Edwina Kidde­master oft observed over the years; for, as one of the elder matrons of the great family, and one whose alarm'd concern with the decline of morals and etiquette in the nation, subsequent to the War Between the States, did not stint from a courageous examination of her own family, she felt the need to speak frankly, no matter whose feathers (as she curtly expressed it) were ruffled. Other members of the family were less harsh, wishing to cast no blame on Mr. and Mrs. Zinn for the improvidence of the adoption, tho' they whispered of Deirdre that she “went her own way,” or declared herself, by her habitual scowling melancholy, “a sadly troubl'd young lady”—perhaps even “haunted,”
by they knew not what!

Beauty being a dutiful concern of all the ladies, both of the
intrinsic
sort and the
cultivated,
it was generally believed—indeed, all the judgments were in, from family members, and from society itself—that, apart from poor Samantha, Deirdre was the most ill-featur'd of the Zinn girls: Samantha's lack of beauty being primarily one of puzzling
plainness,
whilst Deirdre's had much to do with her pale, leaden, lugubrious countenance, and the sinister
recalcitrance
with which her brightly-dark eyes beheld the world. “The child is no beauty,” Grandmother Sarah Kidde­master observed, with a delicate shudder, “yet I somehow fancy that she possesses beauty in secret, and is too grudging, or too shy, to reveal it to us.” (A most peculiar notion, issuing from that sensible lady!)

Albeit that young Deirdre was, in legal nomenclature, and in all official records, adopted, it must not be thought that she was ever considered by her family to be but an outsider; nor was she made to feel different from the other girls save, perhaps, in certain rare and negligible episodes of impatience, on the part of one or two of her sisters. (In this wise, it should be recorded that the sisters felt themselves so frequently rebuffed in their efforts to befriend Deirdre that they naturally grew resentful, and, at times, somewhat irascible.) Indeed, it was a common observation, both throughout the Bloodsmoor Valley, and in Philadelphia, amongst families conversant with the situation, that Prudence and John Quincy Zinn clearly cherished their adopted daughter, as if she were of their own blood.

That the Zinns acted out of selfless Christian compassion in bringing this deprived child, at the age of nine or ten, into their harmonious household, the reader is free to infer, with no demurral from me; that they acted—alas, how innocently!—with some small measure of imprudence, the reader is invited to judge for himself.

Yet, I cannot help but think that, like Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson, that great New England gentleman of Mr. Zinn's acquaintance, both Prudence and John Quincy would have rejected, with proud vehemence, any thought of behavior of an uncharitable, or small-spirit'd, nature. For did not Mr. Zinn, earlier in his life, oft recite, with benign smiling countenance, these instructive lines of Mr. Emerson's?

 

Tho' love repine, and reason chafe,

There came a voice without reply—

“ 'Tis man's perdition to be safe,

When for the truth he ought to die.”

IF YOU HAVE
never glimpsed Kidde­master Hall in its noble site above the Bloodsmoor River, some fifty miles to the east of its junction with the Christiana, I will swiftly limn it for you.

This historic house, widely acclaimed as one of the most majestic, yet most tasteful, examples in the region of that style known as Philadelphia Greek Revival, possessed, at the time of our chronicle, a grace, beauty, and wholesome elegance, rivaling that of Monticello; and far more harmonious, in its natural bucolic surroundings, than Rumford Hall, some miles distant, or the Ormonds' ostentatious Mt. Espérance but a few hours' drive away, or, indeed, the manor house of the family of Du Pont de Nemours, on the Brandywine.

The house glimmered white, on even the most gloomy of December days, possessing ten serene columns in the Doric style supporting an immense triangular portico; eight high, stately, perfectly proportion'd windows faced front; there was a graceful tho' large dome, in the shape of a pentagon; there were gently banked roofs, covered in slate; and numerous handsome chimneys; and serpentine walls; and countless minor ornamental touches of a restrained nature. (Indeed, Kidde­master Hall exemplified, throughout, that classical dignity, and quiet opulence, mawkishly but vainly imitated in the pretentious baronial palaces and “English” mansions erected in the Seventies by war profiteers, and that contemptible new breed, the “government contractor”—and even by the wealthier of those gentlemen who, tho' calling themselves
retailers,
were but common
shopkeepers;
a race of indefatigable vulgarians, and opportunists, who could not have traced their
American blood
past the turn of the century!)

Tho', on its twenty-five hundred acres of land, Kidde­master Hall possessed a charmingly rural aspect, it was yet no more than a few hours' drive by carriage from Philadelphia; and even closer to Wilmington, Delaware, across the Bloodsmoor River. From these cities, and from divers parts of the countryside, the guests of the Kidde­masters had journeyed, upon that portentous day with which our history begins: the occasion being a formal high tea, in honor of the engagement of the eldest Zinn daughter, Constance Philippa, to the Baron Adolf von Mainz, of Germany, and more recently of Philadelphia; and, in addition, to quietly honor the presence of three distinguished gentlemen, from the American Philosophical Society, who had journeyed down from Boston to make the acquaintance of John Quincy Zinn. (Mr. Zinn, I should explain, had, by 1879, acquired a considerable reputation as an inventor, and thinker, of rare originality; though his real fame lies in the future when the Congress of the United States, and President McKinley himself, took an especial interest in his career, and had much to do with bestowing upon him numerous grants and honoraria to aid in his research. On the day of his youngest daughter's abduction, Mr. Zinn was but fifty-two years old, and had labored at his oft-thankless vocation of
invention
since early boyhood.)

Ah, might that unfortunate day have been averted!—might Deirdre have been ill, or somehow indisposed, that her mother would have commanded her to remain at home abed!—and so much grief would have been prevented. But, alas, nothing of the kind transpired; and though Deirdre oft cast a sickly, peevish, and, as it were,
green-hued
countenance upon the world, she was as healthsome as any of her sisters, not excluding the overly robust Constance Philippa, who frequently dismayed the elder ladies with her declared pleasure in
walking
—not in the company of her fiancé, nor even in the company of her sisters, but
alone.

There were upward of one hundred guests at Kidde­master Hall, and some thirty or more servants to attend them, dressed in the subdued, and scrupulously proper, attire favored by the Kidde­masters for their help, over many generations—indeed, harking back to Federalist times. (The men wore livery, and highly polished black leather shoes; the women, modest black cotton-and-flannel dresses, with stiff-starched white aprons, and caps, and, despite the heat of the afternoon, heavy lisle stockings.) As the guests convened, what a joyous medley of voices ensued!—and how gratifying to the eye, the ladies' dresses, many-skirted, frothy, and airy, and as varied in their hues, as the beauteous autumn flowers that bloomed in the myriad beds! I cannot but think it by Our Lord's mercy, that the tea was over, and all the guests departed, when Miss Deirdre Zinn was carried away by her abductor: for think what an unspeakable humiliation
that
would have been, if these distinguished gentlemen and ladies had stared down from the terrace, to the hellish scene below!

Amidst the guests, however, no one was more pleasing to the eye, or excited more comment, than the five Zinn daughters of local fame. As we advance more intimately upon the sisters, we will not shrink from taking note of countless small imperfections, and some major faults; so it is well to remember that, observed and judged from a distance, as doubtless guests to Kidde­master Hall were wont to do,
Constance Philippa,
and
Octavia,
and
Malvinia,
and
Samantha,
and even
Deirdre
did strike the eye as uncommonly attractive young ladies, though they lived in a society in which Beauty—whether of face, or form, or manner, or attire—was very much a requisite, for the female sex. It is true, Samantha was plain and pinched of countenance; and so undeveloped for her age, she might have been a child of twelve, or less: yet, presented in the midst of her sisters, and as gaily adorned as the prettiest, she, too, excited generally favorable comment, and was held to be “petite,” and “fairylike,” and “possessed of an elfin charm.”

John Quincy Zinn's somewhat unique position in Bloodsmoor, as the father of five distinctly marriageable young ladies, might not have seemed an enviable one; less enviable still was his position as head of a household of limited financial resources—for John Quincy was, and oft was made to feel, but the
son-in-law
of the wealthy Godfrey Kidde­master. Being of a private, and even hermetic, turn of mind, he shrank from frequent public appearances, yet, when he did appear, how admiringly all eyes were drawn to him, and to his striking family!—Mr. Zinn tall, wide-shouldered, and abash'dly handsome; Mrs. Zinn of Junoesque stature, formidably clad in lavender, with an immense lavender and cream-colored hat; and the daughters!—self-conscious, yet resplendent, in their finest Sunday clothes, radiant as walking candles, fully cognizant of admiring—nay,
examining
—eyes on all sides. “How they stare!” Octavia murmured to Malvinia, so excited, she had begun to breathe swiftly and shallowly, and could not constrain herself from grasping her sister's arm. “And is it we whom they stare at, so frankly?”—whereupon Malvinia laughingly murmured, in reply, “Nay, I think it is Father's live daughters; or Grandfather's five aspiring heiresses.”

 

UPON THAT HISTORIC
day, guests arrived at Kidde­master Hall in vehicles of greatly varying species, ranging from the bronze coach of the house of Du Pont de Nemours, to the more tasteful, yet still splendid, coaches of the Whittons, and the Gilpins, and the Millers—these excellent old families of the Valley, and of Philadelphia, being intricately related by both blood and marriage to the Kidde­masters. And there were innumerable modest, yet, withal, entirely respectable, victorias and surreys owned by local residents. And the Baron von Mainz, that dashing figure! What commentary
he
stimulated, by choosing to ride out from Philadelphia, on horseback: on his wide-nostril'd black English Thoroughbred stallion, some seventeen hands high, with its deep-set, glaring, crafty eyes, that seemed, in playful manner, not unlike the Baron's own. “Your fiancé, and his handsome mount, are altogether striking,” Malvinia whispered to Constance Philippa, behind her part-opened fan. “Alas, my dear, are you not gravely
intimidated
by both?” Whereupon the flush-cheek'd Constance Philippa lowered her gaze to the ground, and somewhat sullenly replied, “I am intimidated by no one, and nothing; and I must beg you to make no further unwelcome speculation on the nature of
my
feelings.”

Mr. and Mrs. Zinn, and their five daughters, were fetched to the Hall from their home, a short distance away, by the Kidde­masters' own coach for, unfortunately, they could afford no carriage of their own, save a “country” surrey of distinctly outmoded style, which would hardly be appropriate for this important occasion; and so they were driven through the park, and up the quarter-mile gravel drive, to Mrs. Zinn's parents' home, in a vehicle of such tasteful splendor as to gratify Mrs. Zinn, even as it deeply embarrassed her husband. “I take no more account than you do, Mr. Zinn, of the vagaries and vanities of the material world,” Prudence declared, “yet, upon certain emblematic occasions, I feel that it is not only apt, but obligatory, that we align ourselves with my father's house: that the coarse-minded gossipers of Bloodsmoor may be constrained, from speculation as to my father's
favoring,
or
disfavoring,
of any one of our daughters, or of you; or the entire Zinn family.”