She rattled on about Mr. Zinn’s drawings for a noiseless electric trolley, to replace the cumbersome steam engine; and his drawings for an auto-locomotive, or auto-mobile, possibly to be run by electricity as well, the which wondrous device would replace forever horse-drawn carriages, with their steel-tire clatter, and crashing hooves, and unspeakable horse pollution: an invention to “change forever the face of the earth,” as Samantha declared, “and improve it immeasurably.” She spoke with immoderate pride of his burglarproof lock, which would eradicate theft, and many another form of wrongdoing, from the earth, once a manufacturing concern might be persuaded to produce it; and of his perpetual-motion machine, which was nearing its completion; and of a Utopian paradise, to be constructed early in the next century, by means of divers inventions, Mr. Zinn’s necessarily at the vanguard. Ah, how the child’s green eyes shone, as she spoke of cities to be “whitely iridescent, growing vertically into the sky, and beneath the surface of the earth as well!” One day, machines would service machines; great conveyor belts would move unceasingly, bringing forth goods of every imaginable type; there would be no want; no poverty; no yearning; and hence no crime. The theory of interchangeable parts, initially developed by Eli Whitney, and other American inventors, would be advanced a thousandfold, if Mr. Zinn could but interest an experimental and ambitious manufacturer, for it was his belief—nay, his absolute certitude—that, the secret of the universe being both interchangeable units, and ceaseless motion, humankind cannot do better than to emulate this law; and to establish, in material terms, that harmony of the Invisible Spheres, of which Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson and others had spoken with such winning eloquence, earlier in the century. “For, as Father believes, if the human margin for error is but eliminated, and only accuracy-tested machines are entrusted with the maintenance of machines, and the conveyors, and the production, are never allowed to wastefully halt, why then how should we fail, to emerge ahead of the other nations, in the great adventure all before us?” Thus the heedless young lady rattled on, speaking with such ill-mannered enthusiasm, and feverish incoherence, as to irrevocably offend the very gentlemen who had been encouraged to dance with her, and, alas! to quite undo the effect of the beautiful lilac gown, and the lilac-dyed ostrich feathers which fell so charmingly backward, from her high mound of hair.
Unworldly, foolish child! She had not discerned the pitying, contemptuous, and amused looks, exchanged by her listeners; she had even been so deluded as to believe (until Malvinia cruelly told her otherwise), that the smile of one gentleman in particular, far from being a consequence of his delight in her words, was but a sign of derision, and thus interpreted by all. “It is your brain that is at fault, and must be brought under rigorous control,” Malvinia told Samantha, so vexed that she had to restrain herself from tapping the young woman’s shoulder with her fan, “for, in its present condition, it is a perpetual-motion machine in itself; and most repugnant.”
SAMANTHA ALONE OF the Zinn daughters exhibited no outward jealousy of little Deirdre, being of the practical belief that Mrs. Zinn loved them all as a mother must naturally love her children, in accordance with custom, and duty; and believing, in her innermost heart, that Mr. Zinn secretly loved her above any other member of his household, no matter that the vivacious Malvinia had seemed, from the cradle upward, her father’s favorite. (For was not Samantha allowed to assist her father, in his workshop?—ofttimes for as long as eight, or ten, or even twelve, uninterrupted hours. And had not Mr. Zinn long since abandoned all efforts to speak of his sacred work, with anyone save Samantha?)
Indeed, Samantha felt some intrinsic sympathy for her adopted sister, both girls being yet childlike in their corporeal development, and so lacking in feminine graces, and beauty, as to have banished from the parlor, forever, any reading of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling,” tho’ others of Mr. Andersen’s much-loved fairy tales were oft read aloud, with great delight. Both Samantha and the beetle-brow’d Deirdre were ill at ease, in even the most congenial female society: tea-table conversation baffled them, and their dresses were never quite right, and they were given to long maddening silences, as if their minds had, in defiance of all rules of social decorum, drifted elsewhere. From time to time, in such painful situations, they might even have exchanged a swift, covert glance—so fleet, however, as to be undiscerned by their elders, and scarcely remarked even by themselves.
Yet, how ironical it was! Despite Samantha’s equanimity of manner, and her generosity in regard to certain whims of Deirdre’s, it was evidently not the case that Deirdre felt more affection for Samantha than for the others; it was hardly the case that she felt any perceptible affection for her at all.
“Cold of heart!—and secretive!—and stubborn!—and perverse!” Samantha bethought herself, eying Deirdre’s rigid back, as the girl sat at her hickory writing table, puzzling over a mathematical assignment from Mr. Zinn, or perusing, in secret, a volume of verse, or a romance of the darksome and gothic type, generally forbidden in the Octagonal House. “And yet, would I wish her otherwise? For I have all that I require—indeed, more than I require—of sisters: and find the expenditure of emotion very nearly more than I can grant.”
From time to time, in great alarm, Samantha might be wakened from her slumber to hear Deirdre’s sobs, all but muffled in the bedclothes: and she would lie transfixed, wondering if she should move to comfort the unhappy child; or if she should allow her some measure of privacy, and secrecy?—seeing that she herself, to Mrs. Zinn’s disapproval, prized both. However, if she did ask Deirdre what was wrong, the sobbing oft ceased at once; and the girl lay very still, and very rigid, in a stubborn pretense of sleep. Or, it might be, this instance of whispered solicitude, being unexpected, had the result of causing the stricken child to sob all the more violently—with such despair, and such shameless abandon, verging near upon hysteria, as to make Samantha herself frightened.
(Yet, alas, rarely enlightened, for upon these occasions too Deirdre would resolutely turn away, hunched up on the far side of the bed, her face pressed into the pillow. Only in the early years had she allowed Samantha to embrace her, all wordlessly, and would even cry herself to sleep, secure in Samantha’s arms, the while whimpering most piteously certain incoherent phrases as “No, no . . . no . . . you cannot make me . . . I will not . . . no . . .” and appeals to “Mother” and “Father,” which Samantha, even as a young girl, comprehended did not pertain to Mr. and Mrs. Zinn, but to the deceas’d Bonners.)
Samantha also suffered some inordinate distractions, over a period of two or more years, when, shortly after Deirdre’s twelfth birthday, their bedchamber began to be disturbed by curious raps, and knocks, and creaks, and near-inaudible “voices,” in the walls. This was the onset of the ne’er-explained ghost phenomena that were to cause some mischief in the Octagonal House, and elsewhere, and not a little embarrassment; for whilst it could not be proved that any one of the Zinns was responsible for these disruptions, it was always the case that the phenomena did not occur, apart from them: and apart from poor Deirdre, in particular.
Beginning, in a sense, modestly, the disagreeable occurrences increased, both in frequency, and in seriousness: soon moving out from the walls of the bedchamber, to infect the entire house, and, upon occasion the Hall, and several social events, which were then grievously ruined. (Thus Constance Philippa’s eighteenth birthday celebration was disrupted, when an invisible force o’erturned the dining room table, and sent all the chinaware, crystal, and silver, and divers victuals, crashing to the floor; and a gay skating party on the river, organized by Malvinia, Miss Delphine Martineau, and several male cousins, in celebration of New Year’s Day, was thrown into consternation, when, beneath the skaters’ feet, the hard-frozen ice somehow creaked, and muttered, and heaved, and threatened to give way, to cause the young people to plummet into the icy waves—when, at the very same time, the ice was altogether solid! Most distressing of all, the phenomena followed the Zinns to old Whitton Hall, o
n the Delaware, where, one Michaelmas Eve, those elderly relatives of the Zinns and Kiddemasters had given a luxuriant reception, in honor of both the retired Chief Justice Godfrey Kiddemaster, and the visiting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Morrison Remick Waite, acquaintances of old: the creaks, raps, muffled shouts, heaving of furniture, blasts of icy air, and other familiar manifestations, taking place the while Deirdre herself was all innocently employed elsewhere, in a far wing of the house, doing her schoolwork!)
Deirdre was evidently the victim, as well, of unusual nightmares, and distressing floating dreams, which had the effect of quite terrorizing her, for she was certain that ghosts were responsible; and their malevolence was all the more wicked, in that they could not be precisely seen, but only sensed. Mr. Zinn was loath to allow such observations to be voiced, for, as a man of science and rationality, he deplored superstition, and found it very hard to accept that the supernatural, in any guise, had to do with these curious events. “The Spirit presiding over the universe, and immanent in every breath we draw, is not, by any wildness of the imagination, a deceitful force,” Mr. Zinn said, “nor must it—or He, as popular sentiment would say—be interpreted, as springing out of the supernatural, and not the natural. All that we do not yet comprehend, by means of science and rationality, we are lazily accustomed to call supernatural; all that we know, natural. Thus,” he explained to his alarmed family, and to the trembling Deirdre in particular, “it is erroneous to speak of ghost phenomena, and you will displease me greatly, if you persist in so doing.”
All his family were in haste to apologize, and promised that, from that moment onward, they should not refer to the strange events as supernatural; but only as natural.
Yet the curious manifestations not only continued, but increased in frequency, the while poor Deirdre lowly protested that she was not to blame; and quite shrank from the censorious glances of the others. “Perhaps if we administered to Deirdre a strong dose of Great-Aunt Edwina’s laudanum,” Malvinia speculated, “she might sleep for a full night; and we might sleep.”
Queer wailing winds arose, in the several chimneys of the Octagonal House; and sourceless drafts of air snaked about, ofttimes following certain members of the household, and the little pet monkey, Pip—who was so affrighted, he clamored to be locked safely away in Mr. Zinn’s workshop for the night. One morning, it was discovered that Great-Aunt Edwina’s dressmaker’s dummy had positioned itself some feet outside the closed door of the sewing room at Kiddemaster Hall!—and one of the seamstresses confessed that, for some weeks, she had been quite frightened of it, for it gave some small simulation of life; albeit that, when actually examined, it was of course naught but paper, tape, and varnish, and thoroughly lifeless. (More generally, this sewing room at the Hall, crowded as it was with the dummies of ladies no longer living, was a cause of both uneasiness and alarm to the Zinn girls, from childhood onward. Alas, what a lesson here, for even the most brash of young women! So many female figures whose real selves no longer inhabited the world; such evidence of Time, and Mortality, and the fickleness of Fashion! Upon one occasion, some years earlier, Malvinia had examined the small, squat, and, indeed, stunted-appearing, dummy once belonging to her great-great-grandmother Lydia Burr Kiddemaster, and expressed some derisory doubt, as to whether it was a human dummy, or not. Whereupon Octavia said, disapproving: “Should you like one of our descendants someday to mock your figure, in such wise?” And Malvinia pertly replied: “My figure, dear Octavia, is as close to perfection, as nature, art, and craft, might devise: and I find it very difficult to think, that it shall ever be unfashionable.”)
Pursuant to this bewildering incident involving Great-Aunt Edwina’s dummy, a flurry of similar manifestations occurred at the Hall, to the great vexation of the elderly inhabitants, who complained that the house was, by degrees, becoming haunted: no matter that John Quincy Zinn insisted otherwise. Indeed, Great-Aunt Edwina, pressing a beringed hand to her heaving bosom, bluntly contradicted Mr. Zinn to his face, claiming that his adopted child was certainly responsible for the mischief: being not only haunted, perhaps, but damn’d!
(I am sorry to be forced to employ that particular word, in this, or any other, context: for it strikes the ear most harshly, and cannot fail to give offense, to younger readers especially, and to members of the female sex. I believe it to be a measure of Miss Edwina Kiddemaster’s sovereignty, at home and abroad, that she, alone of all ladies, might utter this startling word, in all confidence of escaping censure: nay, with every assurance of transcending it!—her gaze stern as a sphinx’s, her lips resolutely pursed, her figure stolid as that of an alabaster angel of wrath.)
Mr. Zinn was taken aback, by both this sobering word, with its grave theological weight, and Miss Kiddemaster’s vehemence in uttering it; but he managed to reply, forthrightly, yet courteously, that it was quite unjust to speak in this wise of his daughter, who was altogether innocent, and, in any case, a great-niece of Miss Kiddemaster’s—and therefore to be treated with some consideration.
“Indeed, Mr. Zinn,” the marble-brow’d lady replied, “the girl may be a daughter of yours; but she is not, by any liberality of law or custom, a great-niece of mine.”
I AM COMPELLED to pause very briefly, to explain to the reader that Miss Edwina Kiddemaster was a most formidable presence, in Kiddemaster Hall, and in Bloodsmoor in general. At the time of our narrative’s commencement, she was in her late fifties, as to age, and rumored to be exceptionally wealthy, possessing a fortune, as a consequence of her literary activities, well beyond that which was hers by birth, as a Kiddemaster. Her first book, The Young Lady’s Friend: A Compendium of Correct Forms, had been rapidly penned in the authoress’s twenty-first year (although not published for many years), in angry response to what she saw to be a decided loosening of morals, even amongst her cousins, during the administration of Martin Van Buren: the most valuable chapter in the manual having to do with proper behavior at balls. (Many a young lady, and her anxious mother, consulted this popular book, to learn that whilst there was nothing inherently indecent about the waltz, it was a matter of great importance that a gentleman never encircle the lady’s waist until the dance begins, and drop his arms at once when the dance ends.)
Following close upon this auspicious début was a related study, A Guide to Proper Christian Behavior Amongst Young Persons, which was even more successful, by subscription publication; and so, with the passage of years, book followed upon book, and Miss Kiddemaster undertook a column in The Ladies’ Home Journal, under the pen-name “Miss K.” which, modestly titled “On Etiquette,” came to have enormous influence on the genteel classes, involving not only ladies, but gentlemen as well. Thus, it is not erroneous to state that the girls’ great-aunt was renowed, in her own right, quite apart from her Kiddemaster heritage; and that her word fell with the weight of law, in all domestic matters.
Certain detractors of the authoress, including, upon occasion, her own brother Godfrey, observed that Miss Edwina Kiddemaster, while being a stern authority on etiquette for others, frequently rose above it herself: having been known to slip quietly from a gathering, before leave-taking was proper; and to introduce certain subjects—party politics, and the tariff, and the scandal of the unions—generally forbidden in mixed company, in the cultivated classes. Godfrey Kiddemaster also speculated, somewhat too freely, as to whether his sister was mad, or merely ambitious, in that she worked so assiduously at her writing desk, whilst the other ladies of her circle occupied themselves with visits, and teas, and charity work, and religion, and fancywork of divers kinds: for he believed it to be quite baffling, that any Kiddemaster should feel the impulse to work, still less to earn money; and fame, of course, was naught but vulgar.
Thus, when Great-Aunt Edwina declared that Deirdre was haunted, or damn’d, the statement was taken up with some alarm, on the part of the Zinns: for Mrs. Zinn knew herself to be a favored inheritrix of her aunt’s fortune, and did not wish to offen
d her. (Unfortunately, over the years, Great-Aunt Edwina had oft expressed forthright disapproval of the Zinn daughters, who seemed unable to please her, no matter how hard they were encouraged to try. Constance Philippa was “uncouth and mannish, as to her carriage”; Octavia, whilst sweet, and agreeably docile, somewhat alarmed the eye, as a consequence of her “corporeal precocity”; Malvinia was “spoiled, headstrong, and vain,” despite her beauty; and Samantha, with her stubborn “o’erexertion of the brain,” could not fail to displease.)
In time, the disconcerting and unexplain’d phenomena abated; and finally came to an end, not long after Deirdre’s fifteenth birthday. Yet it was upward of a half-year before Great-Aunt Edwina condescended to allow Deirdre in the same room with her: and her manner, it hardly needs to be said, remained distinctly formal.
THE WHILE THE invisible manifestations gradually disappeared, poor Deirdre continued to suffer, on the average of thrice a month, nightmares of a singularly vivid type: oft waking Samantha from a deep slumber, with her childlike whimpering, and squirming, and pleas. “No no no no I will not oh please no I cannot,” the stricken girl cried, thrashing about in her sleep, “no no no I cannot come with you I do not belong to you oh please you must leave me alone,” as the frightened Samantha made every effort to wake her, sometimes rewarded, for her pains, by a blow to the face or chest.