A Bloodsmoor Romance (99 page)

The War itself continuing, my villainous husband, now assisting General Sheridan, led vengeful cavalry charges upon the thinn'd ranks of rebel units, in the Shenandoah; & boasted that he “had no pity to spare,” for the Confederate traitors, nor e'en for those civilians, whose misfortune it was to cross his path. When, on leave from these sanctioned slaughters,
The Bull
betook himself to Washington (in shameless disregard of his ignor'd bride, at this time sequestered, with a very small household staff, in a small village on the Hudson—the while her deceiv'd family thought her to be touring Europe), it was yet to indulge himself in his vices, with as much angered frenzy, as he expended in the heat of battle. (Must Vice have a name?—a specific title? Drinking—gambling, at poker & at the racetrack—consorting with females, of the most rank & promiscuous station—drunken brawling with his own comrades: such were the absorptions of my
husband,
& the
father-to-be,
of an innocent baby girl!)

That Almighty God did
not
forsake me, in my time of deepest despair, is evident in the fact that my confinement, tho' prolonged for some fifteen agoniz'd hours, & hideously interrupted by the
emergence of the blackguard
into the downstairs of the dwelling place (where, for some unfathom'd reason, he rode his neighing & snorting & stamping stallion into the foyer, thus injuring the old parquetry—the action of a drunken brute!), this confinement, with its extreme suffering, both of the spirit and the flesh, ne'ertheless resulted in the birth of a perfectly-form'd
INFANT GIRL
.

AN INFANT GIRL SUBSEQUENTLY CAST ASIDE, BY HER DESPAIRING MOTHER.

Adieu!—adieu: an innocent babe, & its rampaging father!

Elisha Burlingame, a captain of cavalry never advanced, save for a few weeks, when, due to the exigencies of the War, he was given the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel—then, to his shame, promptly demoted, as a consequence of carousing & brawling; a self-proclaimed
patriot
of his adopted country, who so mistreated the soldiers in his regiment, he ordered deserters shot without trial, & wounded men, who, for some incalculable reason, had earned his displeasure, forbidden medical treatment (& how the vainglorious Captain had boasted of his soldierly skills, one day to earn him the rank of General!)

Adieu!—Captain Elisha Burlingame, with your coarse yet handsome face; your flaring nostrils; your tumbling red-brown curls; your bristling whiskers! Adieu, treacherous husband, mounted so arrogantly upon your thoroughbred stallion, your broad-brimmed gray hat rakish upon your head, your crimson scarf astir in the breeze, your laughter loud, zestful, & pitiless!

“Ugly as sin! All a wager! Go away! Allow me to wake up!”—thus the drunkard husband stormed, scarce knowing what he said, upon returning to his home, very late one night, from an officers' club, an Indian scalp (cured & tanned, he afterward claimed) askew on his head, beneath his captain's hat. “Allow us to wake,” the bulging-eyed villain shouted, “from this gangrenous nightmare!”

Adieu, husband; adieu, baby; adieu—
love.

For it was not long after the birth of the despised child, that the father died: in a quarrel, it was said, in a camp near Stafford, Virginia, where cavalry & infantry were stationed, prior to that great battle of the War to be fought at Gettysburg—the which Captain Burlingame never saw. A quarrel over cards—or over the favors of a female camp-follower, of teenage years—or out of surly drunkenness: culminating in a duel of sorts, tho', by all accounts, hardly more than a murderous assault, in which two well-matched bullies, my husband & a twenty-eight-year-old Brigadier-General, so grievously wounded each other, both died within hours.

Adieu!—'tis love's last greeting.

The infant daughter, tho' blameless, was cast aside by her betrayed mother; & given out to secret adoption, by a childless couple, who were said by all who knew them, to be God-fearing, frugal, & industrious—yet, such was my delirium, & my zeal for revenge against Elisha, that I cannot claim to have greatly
cared,
as to the fate of the child. Nay, I cannot claim to have
contemplated
it at any length, save as an affliction, a badge of shame, to be eradicated with as much dispatch as possible, thus freeing me to leave the scene of my ignominy behind, & sail for England. (It is not altogether accurate, to say that my status as
Mrs. Elisha Burlingame
remained secret: for, at the extreme of my distress, I had need of the counsel & support of my elder brother Godfrey, who, surprising in his anger'd sympathy, once seeing that
revenge
against a dead man was pointless, gave me invaluable advice as to the future; &, tho' keeping free himself of the particulars, saw to it that a worthy & close-mouthed lawyer was retained, to aid me in the legal technicalities my unfortunate predicament had engendered. It was this lawyer—now long deceased, alas—who made careful inquiry, as to the very best home for my baby; and this lawyer, who arranged for Mr. Herman Bonner to be employed, on a clerical or managerial level, at one of my brother Vaughan's most prosperous factories. And—such are the glorious omnipotencies, of the Law!—it was this well-practic'd lawyer who arranged for so thorough an eradication of my status as
Mrs. Elisha Burlingame,
that I was able to resume, with all propriety, my maiden name,
as if the unspeakable marriage had never taken place.
)

And so it seemed!—and so I deluded myself, for upward of thirty years!

The while, I absorbed myself in my
worldly career,
& acquired a reputation of some strength, & sufficient monetary reward, to make the sustained effort more than an idle lady's amusement. An authoress whose works are, I am told, read & enjoyed by one out of every four Americans; precious for their close instruction, in the difficulties of social intercourse, & in moral comport, in these troubl'd times. (I know not whether proper etiquette be an
art,
or only a
craft:
that it is
difficult,
there is no doubt. And, as it cannot be acquired by instinct, it must be
learned.
)

Thus I deluded myself; & was not, in truth, unhappy. For I enjoy'd the company of the most worthy members of Society; I took pleasure in my travels, & speeches before divers assemblies, & literary friendships, with such persons as Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Ann Stephens, and the Reverend Hargreave Tupper (author of the excellent
Proverbial Philosophy
), and many another star in our firmament. Such was my self-esteem, & contentment in my work, that the uncanny coincidence that my very own daughter should be adopted by my niece and her husband, & brought to dwell within a mile of my own home,
did not impress me at the time as more than a minor vexation.
For, tho' I knew that “Deirdre Bonner” was in fact my own child, sent away nameless from my side, to be baptiz'd by strangers, & tho' I believed it to be a mistake of judgment (alas, a not atypical lapse, in the Zinns' household), that she be adopted into our family, I did not feel any deep or tumultuous stirring, of emotion. That the adoption was a
mistake,
seemed to many of us patently clear: not because of the identity of the orphan, but because of the grave & chronic financial uncertainties, of that household calling itself, with some small smugness, the Octagonal House—tho' known amongst the Kidde­masters, & I believe in the village as well, by such less flattering appellations as “Dog-Hutch,” “Crank-Cottage,” & “Zinn's Folly.” (My canny-minded brother Godfrey, tho' rarely lacking in generosity, oft stated that making loans to his son-in-law was but “throwing good cash down a rat hole—the rat hole, & the rats within, possessing a
perpetual
appetite”—this acerbic jest being lost, to those unfamiliar with the heroic toil, of many years, of our Bloodsmoor inventor, in his pursuit of the chimerical
perpetual-motion machine.
)

It is amazing to me now, in my enlighten'd state, that I could not perceive the hand of Almighty God, in that autumn of 1873, when my niece and her son-in-law brought home
my very own daughter!
—to dwell in their midst, amongst their own four girls, as
Deirdre Zinn,
late a pathetic orphan, cast upon the waters of Fate, by her adoptive parents' deaths. Nay, was I blind?—was I mad?—was I so puff'd up with the false splendors of my station in Society, & with my e'er-increasing literary fame, that
I could not discern Our Lord's intention?

A mystery to me now—& one that does not, perhaps, repay too close a scrutiny, if I am to be left with any shred of self-respect, & belief in my own ratiocinative powers.

Yet I cannot truly think that I was blind; or mad; or even greatly absorbed by the public reputation of “Miss Edwina Kidde­master,” or by her increasing wealth—the which, as I had no need for it, was simply channeled into the family's investments, there to healthfully grow, in both times of boom & recession. Nay, I believe I was naught but deficient in feeling: hollow of heart: sterile of soul:
penurious in spirit.

For which, I pray my once-despised daughter will forgive me: as God has only recently indicated,
He
has forgiven me.

Thus, by this Last Will & Testament, I, Edwina Kidde­master, once the fool bride of Elisha Burlingame, do seek to make amends: as, Mr. Basil Miller will presently indicate, that great gentleman Sir Reginald Burlingame, the grandfather of Elisha, & consequently the great-grandfather of that child known as
Deirdre Zinn,
sought to make amends for his grandson's villainy, by bequeathing, on his deathbed, a substantial portion of his English properties, including partnerships in divers London, Birmingham, & Liverpool businesses, & some modest share of stock in an India-trade shipping line, & his ancestral home Burlingame Hall, in Warwickshire—all to the lost child, by way of a clause entrusting the fortune to
me,
for safekeeping. (That unparallel'd gentleman comprehending how, during my lifetime, I should be greatly distressed, by any disclosure of my shameful past, the which would surely have been uncovered, by gossipers, backbiters, & rabid journalists, should he have left this fortune directly to my daughter.)

These various bequeaths are made in full cognizance, I must make clear, of the unhappy fact that past sorrows cannot be erased, by present actions, however generous: & that the spirited bitterness of the spurned child, who guessed, in her heart, something of the
loss
she had endured, was, in the eyes of God & man,
entirely justified.
And yet—it is my fervent prayer, as, I believe, it was Sir Reginald Burlingame's, that the penury of soul exhibited by myself, and, perhaps, others amongst Kidde­masters & Zinns,
can yet be forgiven,
by an action of Christian charity, springing forth from within the heart of the lost child.

Thus, this Last Will & Testament, & this trifling literary attempt, not for publication, but only for private perusal, “The Confession of a Penurious Sinner,” are offered as both legal
documents,
& heartfelt
prayers,
that, her faith in familial love having been so sorely tested, my daughter,
Deirdre Zinn,
shall yet (for it is not too late) experience that awakening of emotion, in the human breast, that is known by the wise as
love
—& too quickly cast aside, by the ignorant, reckless, & vainglorious, as mere
weakness,
to which the female sex is in particular prone.

Tho' the hour is late—alas, the proud old bells of Trinity have chimed
four!
—& I sense myself sadly enfeebl'd, I cannot bid farewell to those whom I love so dearly, without copying, in this document, a poem of singular inspiration, that flowed from my pen one morn some years ago, as I sat myself down, for my customary six-hour stint, before the midday repast, & to my astonishment felt not a whit of interest, in the subject at hand (tho' a most intricate problem, of grave social consequence, pertaining to the employment of
stuffed,
& of
imitation,
furred creatures—amongst them martens, minks, squirrels, small rabbits, and even, upon occasion, the handsomer breed of cat, and the comelier members of the ouistitis family—in the hats, bodices, and sleeves, of ladies of fashion, in the Eighties): I sat myself down, as I said, &, most astonish'd, pushed aside the manuscript upon which I was working, & drew out a fresh sheet of paper, & felt my pen quiver with the giddy energies of the Muse, so rarely allowed me in my lifetime: & penned, within the space of a transcendent hour, this poem—later to appear, under a pseudonym, in
The Ladies' Wreath:

FAME

O tell me not that lofty minds may bow

In reverential homage, to a thought of
mine
—

That laurels yet may greenly deck this brow,

Or that my silent grave may be a shrine

In after-years, where men may rudely crowd,

To mark how low my once-great dust is bow'd.

     O Fame is not for Woman: she must yield

The very essence of her being up;

Bare her full heart, fling off its golden shield,

And drain its very life to fill the cup!—

Which, like a brimming goblet rich with wine,

She poureth out upon the world's broad shrine.

Upon its golden rim they grave her name,

Fling back the empty bowl—and this is Fame!

     And yet—methinks if sometimes lingered one

Whose noble presence unto me hath been

As music to the harp, around the home

Which death hath given me, though all unseen,

The sweet, mysterious sympathies which drew

My love to his, as blossoms drink the dew,