A Bloodsmoor Romance (74 page)

 

AND SO, ON
that day, without warning, Miss Samantha Zinn and Mr. Nahum Hareton disappeared: descended into the mist, as into the bowels of Hell: with every step drawing farther from me, and from Bloodsmoor, until at last the fog closed over their frail figures, and swallowed them up entirely.

Ungrateful children! Shameless sinners! But my words cannot touch them, for they have escaped utterly; and none but the lewdest fiends in Hell might guess where they have gone.

FIFTY-TWO

I
t was unjust of Samantha, and certainly intemperate, to accuse her father of having been casual or self-serving, in his consideration of various “humane” measures of execution: for the good man taxed himself greatly over this problem, internally debating the morality of the entire procedure, and many a time ready to give up in dismay, save that, as Mrs. Zinn so wisely said, the project, and the generous honorarium, would then be awarded to another man, possessed of inferior moral fibre.

“You are right, Prudence,” Mr. Zinn said, sighing. “And then, too, I am but a tinkerer, and must leave the administration of justice—and, indeed, the entire legal profession—to other men, who have made it their lives' work.”

Many a sleepless night John Quincy Zinn spent, perusing dusty old volumes, and causing his eyes to ache, and his stomach betimes to heave, in his diligent search through the centuries, and through many cultures, for a means of capital punishment that would satisfy Congress's demand for both
humanity
and
efficiency!
Not scholarly by nature, and restive away from his belovèd workbench, he nevertheless devoted himself to the preparation of a formal report for Congress, in which numerous traditional methods of execution were considered, and analyzed, and their suitability weighed. Flogging, whipping, knouting, slow strangulation, burning at the stake, starvation in prisons, cages, stocks, etc., mutilation of the body, being torn apart by wild carnivores, and other such heinous means were, in John Quincy's eyes, automatically rejected, as being both inhumane and inefficient, and unworthy of a Christian nation. Nor did death by firing squad, or hanging, altogether strike his fancy, despite their popularity in most of the states. Garroting by way of “slave collars,” a favorite device of the old slaveholding South, was also rejected, even for Negroes: tho' Mrs. Zinn cautioned her idealistic husband against speaking too bluntly on this issue, and offending the Southern gentlemen in Congress. (“It is not, after all, as if slaveholding were unknown in the Kidde­master family,” Mrs. Zinn said. “I mean amongst relatives who lived farther South—and with whom, of course, we Philadelphians did not sympathize.”)

It was certainly the case that Mr. Zinn, with his Transcendentalist soul, felt grave reservations about this project, at the start; but his native Yankee ingenuity soon came to the rescue, and he was able to apply himself to it as a problem of technique, or technology, thereby releasing his greatest energies. The old Roman method of suicide, by opening a vein, struck him as a distinct possibility: particularly if the condemned man were to be allowed the privilege of
administering the execution himself.
And there was the guillotine, which, his reading on the subject soon convinced him, was a wondrously humane and efficient procedure; tho' he doubted that the American public would take to it, as the French so greedily did, being less eager to see blood spilt, and, in general, less desirous of actually mutilating the human body. The employment of powerful poisons—hemlock, cyanide, arsenic, etc.—struck him as reasonable, tho' no poison that induced agonizing convulsions could be considered. Sleeping draughts in excess would be as merciful a means of death as one might hope for, Mr. Zinn thought, after the sudden death, in her crib, of his nine-month-old granddaughter Sarah Rumford. (How untimely, and how tragic, that infant death! Poor Octavia simply discovered Baby Sarah no longer breathing, one day, in her white wicker crib, as peaceful as if she were merely asleep, with her brother Godfrey close by, quite unaware of the disaster, and innocently asking “if Baby would wake soon, and wish to be pushed in her perambulator”—for little Godfrey, a husky high-spirited lad of three, had enjoyed nothing more than helping Octavia push his baby sister along the estate's tree-lined paths.)

Yes, Mr. Zinn concluded, transcending his private grandfatherly sorrow, and seizing upon the idea of
sleep-death:
for could anything be more humane, more peaceful, more gentle, more—inviting? And if the condemned criminal were allowed to
administer the overdose himself,
within, of course, a delimited period of time, the entire procedure could not fail to be eminently civilized, and exemplarily Christian.

 

AND SO HE
drafted a proposal for Congress, enumerating all of the above, and concluding that the method of
sleep-death
seemed to him most viable: and you may well imagine his consternation, when, after much delay (indeed, weeks and months), he was informed that the proposal had been vigorously rejected, with
not one vote
—Republican or Democrat—in its favor.

“I am quite bewildered by this, Prudence,” Mr. Zinn said, plucking nervously at his beard, and examining the official missive yet another time. “I am quite demoralized, and cannot comprehend why they have rejected me so vehemently.”

Mrs. Zinn allowed that
she
was not greatly surprised: for, after all,
self-administered death
was tantamount to suicide, and suicide was a sin against God, and the United States government could hardly countenance, let alone provide the means for, such an egregious act.

“But think of how merciful such a procedure would be!” Mr. Zinn protested. “No bloodshed—no agony—no writhing at the end of a rope—no damage to the physical being! My dear Prudence, what could be more Christian—more humane?”

“Humane it may be,” Mrs. Zinn said, “but Christian it is
not.
”

 

FORTUNATELY FOR MR. ZINN'S
prospects, it happened that one of Prudence's cousins was a Congressman, from a Philadelphia district, and when he journeyed out to Bloodsmoor to spend a few days hunting, he sought out the perplex'd J.Q.Z. in order to inform him that his notions of the
humane,
the
peaceful,
and the
gentle,
were all very good, but totally unacceptable. For, it seems, the legislators wanted a means of capital punishment that was uniquely “American”—even, if you will, “showy”—a means that would “do us proud as a billion-dollar country.”

“Something new, and flashy, and bright, and inventive,” Heywood Kidde­master said, clapping Mr. Zinn robustly on the back. “Something, you know,
ingenious.
And tho' the ‘humane,' business is important, it needn't be the prime consideration: for, tho' my gentleman colleagues did not expressly say so, in their debate, I do believe it would be politic, my friend, to make death hurt a little.”

“Ah! I see,” Mr. Zinn said slowly, gazing at Heywood Kidde­master, and blinking, with so vague an expression as to quite belie his words, “I see: death should be
showy,
and
flashy,
and
ingenious,
and—what was the other?—ah yes,
American.
”

“And it should hurt,” Heywood said, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “Yes, indeed, if
we
are paying for it: it should hurt at least a little.”

“
And it should hurt,
” Mr. Zinn repeated, in a hollow dull voice, “
at least a little.
”

FIFTY-THREE

A
mongst Octavia's female relatives there was more than one, I believe, who solemnly wondered at that steadfast young woman's courage, and bethought herself frequently, as to whether
she
possessed the like strength, and the unwavering Christian faith. The tragic untimely loss of the infant Sarah!—so close upon the heels of a miscarriage, and a prolonged convalescence!—and, tho' such matters were necessarily kept from the ears of womenfolk, it was dimly known too that Mr. Rumford had suffered substantial losses in grain speculation, and had had to borrow heavily from the Kidde­masters: which did not, the reader may well imagine, knowing a little of that stern-conscienc'd gentleman's heart, inspire a household cheeriness, or a free commingling betwixt husband and wife.

Yet, all uncomplaining, the grieving young mother took comfort in all that she
had:
a belovèd husband; a precious and angelic son; devoted parents and family; and, above all, the guidance of Heaven, which became ever clearer to her, in her darkest hours of need.
Forgive me a mother's impertinent sorrow,
was Octavia's daily—nay, hourly—prayer,
for if You have called Baby Sarah to Your side, it was out of a desire to have the prettiest angel of all in Heaven with You!

Thus her innermost heart; as, a never-resting and resolutely genial mistress of Rumford Hall, she busied herself with one hundred and one household tasks daily, and supervised the servants, and discussed all the menus with her housekeeper, and paid her necessary visits to neighbors of a like social station, and to the elderly rector and his wife; and, even more resolutely genial, and certainly uncomplaining, she accommodated Mr. Rumford's conjugal demands, which, with the passage of time, grew gradually more exacting, and more challenging of definition. Yet it was her bliss in her duty, and no mere grim stamina, that gave her the required strength, and sealed her lips, against any outcry of repugnance or simple pain: and more than once, enduring her spouse's protracted labors in the
unitary act,
the amiable wife consoled herself thusly, with an inward recitation of J. Monckton Milnes's powerful verse—

Thou must endure, yet loving all the while,

Above, yet never separate from thy kind;

Meet every frailty with the gentlest smile,

Though to no possible depth of evil blind.

This is the riddle thou hast life to solve;

But in the task thou shalt not work alone,

For while the worlds about the sun revolve,

God's heart and mind are ever with His own.

Even so, I am led to wonder if Octavia's strength, and, above all, the placidity of her heart, might have been sustained throughout her trials, had she not been blessed with her golden-curled cherub, Godfrey II:
Little Godfrey,
as the household warmly called him, with much amazement at the boy's precocity, and the robust high spirits that gave to his every shout or footfall a joyful ring.

Ah, the delightful little gentleman!—his mother's constant worry, for all his tireless mischief; and his mother's constant blessing, upon whom the good woman shamelessly doted, in the warmth of that maternal love which beggars all description, and certainly all analysis!

Master Godfrey was, at the age of three, a large-boned, husky, wondrously energetic little man, with curly locks in which gold and fair brown contended; and pale blue eyes, lit with a gay impudent twinkle, set rather close together, but inordinately beautiful, and thickly lashed; and a squarish, firm face, the cheekbones broad, the chin well-defined, the pretty little ears somewhat elongated, and tapering sharply at the lobes. So well-defined was the child's widow's peak, which grew, it may have been, a full inch down into his smooth broad brow, that it gave an impish, yet utterly captivating, cast to his entire countenance, and might well have been the envy of many a young lady, with pretensions toward beauty. (For tho' the old superstition would have it, that this distinctive mark signified
early widowhood,
or
disaster
of some less defined nature, it was generally considered, by the enlightened, as an unusual sign of beauty: and so indeed, in Malvinia, and even in Deirdre, the widow's peak was striking rather than disfiguring, and surely did not detract from their comeliness.)

Dear Master Godfrey! How dare I attempt to describe that indefatigable imp, who, from the scant age of nine months, was gaily “into everything, high and low,” as his mother exclaimed? How dare I attempt to fix, in cold unyielding print, the sprightly glow of his eyes, and the inquisitiveness of his every glance, and query, and poke? The unabash'd animal spirits that enlivened his husky little form, and the shrill sunny chuckle that erupted from him one hundred times a day, were so irresistible as to wring a smile from Mr. Rumford's thin lips, and inspire a moist tinge of paternal pride, in that gentleman's preoccupied gaze: and to cause him, of a sudden, to summon his lawyer to Rumford Hall, that he might significantly alter his will, in order that Little Godfrey be named as his main heir, and his other children—scatter'd, and doubtless grievously disappointing to him—allotted smaller portions. (Octavia, being of the female sex, naturally stood to inherit nothing at all: yet we can imagine her great joy, on being informed, however obliquely, by Mr. Rumford, as to his intentions. “And, named as he is,” Mr. Rumford observed, “I cannot doubt but that my son will do handsomely, in your grandfather's will too: for the old fool must leave his fortune to someone.”)

True it was, that the elderly Godfrey Kidde­master—now in his mid-nineties—would become inordinately fond of his great-grandson, despite the boy's mischievous high spirits, and his numerous pranks: but the relationship began rather oddly, quite bewildering poor Octavia, and offending Mr. Rumford. For some reason Judge Kidde­master insisted upon seeing Little Godfrey immediately following the baby's birth—as soon as common decency, and Dr. Moffet, would allow; not only did he wish to see, and to hold, the newborn infant (all red-faced and squalling, and kicking with a fury wondrous to behold!), but to
examine
it, in full daylight. So he carried it to a window, and, peering close, took note of the tiny widow's peak, and the shapely little ears, and murmured, “Ah! I like not that, nor
that,
” and continued for some minutes to examine the raging infant, despite the protestations of its father and mother, and the kindly Dr. Moffet: until such time as, puzzled, brooding, and, as it were,
undecided,
he handed the infant back to its nursemaid, his palsied hands shaking, and betook himself back to Kidde­master Hall without another word.