And perhaps, well, perhaps (Constance Philippa held herself aloof from making direct inquiries, and was consequently dependent upon shards and wisps of gossip reported to her by Malvinia, who acquired them by way of their Philadelphia cousins, the lively cousins, that is) there may have been yet another marriage, and yet another tragic and premature death: and then the Baron was in New York, dining with the Millers, and then he had entered into some sort of business partnership with the Millers and the Bayards: and then he was in Philadelphia, allied with Great-Uncle Vaughan Kiddemaster, the wealthiest and most powerful Kiddemaster of all, and at a ball at Highlands he had been introduced to Miss Constance Philippa Zinn, and had quite delighted all the family by exclaiming, in his rich Teutonic accent: “Ah!—the daughter, then, of the celebrated inventor John Quincy Zinn?” (For tho’ Mr. Zinn was dilatory in seeking patents for his numerous discoveries, and had, by the time of this fateful Christmas ball, only two fully acquired, and a third pending, his reputation was growing at all times; and more and more inventors—Hannibal Goodwin, as we have seen, but also George Washington Gale Ferris, and the bright and rapacious young Thomas Alva Edison—were journeying to the modest cabin in the woods, to make his acquaintance and ask his advice on certain problems of their own and, it may be, simply to shake his hand.)
Constance Philippa struck Baron von Mainz, we may assume, as an eminently respectable young Philadelphia lady, soft-spoken, indeed reticent, possessed of a satisfactorily graceful carriage, handsome rather than pretty (for it was Malvinia, the younger sister, who was truly pretty—enchantingly pretty); no longer, at the age of twenty-one, precisely young, as these matters go. But she wore, that evening, a most attractive white-and-lilac organdy dress, and the intricate arrangement of her ringlets, and the peacock feathers in her hair, softened her stern and somewhat bony brow; and she did not offend the gentleman’s ear by rattling and chattering nervously like certain of her elders. True, her height exceeded his, tho’ he wore inch-high heels; but when they were seated, the disparity was not at all evident.
Constance Philippa, for her part, saw a gentleman of an indeterminate age—younger than her father, surely; far older than Cousin Basil, who had just celebrated his thirty-fourth birthday—attired in garments that bespoke, in cut as well as color, an Old World sensibility: less sombre and restrained than the American, and far more welcome to her eye. In truth, balls stimulated the eldest Zinn daughter to sarcasm, for she did not do well at them, and her sarcasm burnt on her tongue as the evening gaily progressed, and she soon lapsed into a sullen hurt quiet, in which, secretly, she derided her rivals’ dresses, and the tiresome blacks and grays of their dancing partners; and so the Baron von Mainz in his fairly bold costume—a blue velvet waistcoat and cream-colored coat lined with velvet of the same hue, a blue satin cravat, white French gloves, two golden breast pins attached by a golden chain, and patent leather shoes that gleamed and winked—quite struck her fancy. He was clearly well-bred, showed little emotion save that of a genteel courtesy, did not ask her tiresome questions; and reminded her—tho’ not altogether consciously, I suppose—of prankish sweet-faced Pip, with his bright dark ageless eyes and button nose, and the question-mark of a tail, which rose so charmingly above his hunched back.
Constance Philippa grimly judged the meeting “successful,” since it happened, as if by accident, that she met the Baron again within that very week, at her Great-Uncle Horace Bayard’s home on Frothingham Square, where he was exceedingly gracious, bowing to her, and clicking his heels smartly together. He inquired after her health, and after the health of her family. And she met him a scant fortnight later at a formal dinner at the Rittenhouse Square home of the Hambleton Woodruffs, again as if by accident—she could not prevent a fierce blush from o’ertaking her, as their eyes again met.
That evening, at the long dinner table, the Baron showed himself to advantage amongst his American hosts, partaking of their conversation in a liberal tone, and exhibiting the proper degree of curiosity and appreciation. Topics discussed were agreeably cultured, to Constance Philippa’s relief: ranging from the merits of Johann Strauss’s Indigo; to the most recent lyceum lecture, “Walking, Temperance & Longevity,” by the famous athlete-clergyman Dr. Manning Cuthbert of Cincinnati; to the surprising phenomenon of new patriotic societies, virtually springing up overnight: the American Protective Association, formed to “reduce Catholic influence in politics and education”; and the Society of Colonial Wars, to which one or two Kiddemasters already belonged; and the Order of Founders and Patriots, which Baron von Mainz himself thought a necessary bulwark against the influx of Irish, Jews, Negroes, and Orientals of all varieties, which was threatening the complexion of America. In all, these organizations were deemed necessary, though perhaps rather excitably publicized; it was the opinion of old Mr. Woodruff, half dozing in his chair, that the country had gone to hell in a handcart since the Federalist bankruptcy—not the murder of Hamilton (for certainly, at that point in his career, Hamilton had deserved death, or worse) but the blunders of Hamilton, leading to the Republican takeover, and, in not many years, the mob triumph of Andrew Jackson . . . whose name could scarce be uttered, in the presence of ladies.
There was talk of the Missionaries Alliance; and Mark Twain; and the All-Blackface Jim Crow Revue then playing at the Varieties Theatre, direct from the Bowery in New York, with Septimis George in the lead—an absolutely hilarious entertainment. Perhaps it was not exactly genteel; perhaps it was rather rowdy and boisterous; but, as Baron von Mainz insisted, it was surely the most lively, the most ingenious, one might say the most American of entertainments, and hence of especial interest to a foreign visitor.
It was then that Mr. Hambleton Woodruff surprised his guests, and his niece Constance Philippa in particular, by doing a spirited imitation of the celebrated Septimis George as he imitated Jim Crow. Remaining in his place at the far end of the table, Mr. Woodruff clapped his hands lightly (for it would not do, of course, to summon the servants), and rolled his eyes and made his mouth go slack, and grinned, and grimaced, and wriggled his fat shoulders, and sang in a “negro” falsetto—
Come listen all you gals and boys,
I’m just from Tuckyhoe;
I’m going to sing a leetle song,
My name’s JIM—CROW.
Weel about and turn about
And do jis so;
Eb’ry time I weel about,
I jump JIM—CROW.
I’m a rorer on de fiddle,
An down in ole Virginny;
Dey say I play de skientific,
Like massa Pagganninny.
De way dey bake de hoe cake,
Virginny nebber tire;
Dey put de doe upon de foot,
An stick im in de fire.
—which quite astonished everyone at the table, and moved even the reticent Constance Philippa to laughing appreciation. One might have worried that Baron von Mainz would think Mr. Woodruff’s performance vulgar (for it was so often the case, to our bewilderment, that foreign visitors who had enjoyed themselves heartily here, returned home and published vicious satires of American life); but, on the contrary, the vastly amused little German led the applause at the conclusion of Mr. Woodruff’s song, and repeated his praise of the blackface music as lively and ingenious and, indeed, marvelously American.
It was soon the case that Baron von Mainz had settled, at least temporarily, in a luxurious suite at the Hotel de la Paix (so that he might, he said, repay his American hosts with dinners of his own), and that he had had shipped his stallion, his falcon, and other possessions, to the great country estate of Vaughan Kiddemaster, in Bucks County, where he had been invited to spend weekends riding and hunting: all of which, Constance Philippa was told, might be seen to be “immensely promising.” Indeed, within a fortnight she and all of the Zinns were invited to dine with the Baron in his suite and to visit him at Highlands, where, on his proud steed Lucifer, with his hooded falcon Adonis on his upraised arm, he was
so arresting a sight—and so unusual a sight—that Constance Philippa drew in her breath sharply, and was visited with the thought: O enviable man!
Her sisters shrank away from the spectacle of Adonis hunting his small prey (sparrows, mourning doves, and mocking birds primarily), and the elder women of the party, Mrs. Zinn, Grandmother Kiddemaster, and Great-Aunt Edwina, declined even to watch from the terrace of the great house, hundreds of feet away; but Constance Philippa did find the sport fascinating. She was sorry of course that the small birds were snatched out of the air by Adonis’s cruel hooked beak, but, after all, they were killed at once (so the Baron assured her), and it was “only Nature”—“only Nature fulfilling herself, as she must.” Judge Kiddemaster’s grumbling distrust of “foreigners” and “disenfranchised noblemen” was somewhat assuaged, and John Quincy Zinn, tho’ disturbed by the bloodiness of the sport, did express some admiration for Baron von Mainz’s mastery of his creatures, and was even stimulated to sketch an idea or two afterward—might there be a machine bird of prey, a mechanical golem of some kind?—attracted to its moving target by magnetism?—a variation upon the military rockets developed by Sir William Congreve at the turn of the century, and fancifully envisioned by Jules Verne?
Constance Philippa stood erect beneath her sunshade as the Baron rode up, and dismounted, keeping his wrist high and steady so that the falcon (now hooded) should not be unbalanced; she gazed shyly at him through her tulle veil, and murmured, as if involuntarily: “How remarkable!—your Adonis!—your Lucifer!” The Baron bowed, yet even then did not disturb his fierce bird of prey, whose burnished feathers rippled in the breeze, and whose blood-stained beak opened and closed spasmodically. Constance Philippa drew a quick wild breath, feeling suddenly faint, and she saw, or seemed to see, an almost imperceptible sensual quiver of the little man’s mustache. “My dear Miss Zinn,” the Baron murmured, in a near-inaudible voice, wiping his mouth with his gloved hand, and bowing again, as smartly as before, “I am at your service.”
And not long afterward he made his appeal to Judge Kiddemaster; and then to Mr. and Mrs. Zinn; and at last to Constance Philippa herself, who, stony-cold with fear, unable to quite grasp what was happening, accepted his proposal of marriage with numbed lips, and had to restrain herself from drawing away when the overjoyed suitor, still on his knees, sought her hand to kiss it. She could not help glancing over his head, to the doorway of the parlor: for surely her sisters were hiding there, and would burst into laughter in another moment? And wasn’t naughty little Pip crouched behind the settee?
SINCE THEIR DOWAGER chaperons were always nearby, and conscientiously attentive, the affianced couple conversed of little save very general subjects, and, indeed, oft strolled or sat in total silence, absorbed (so I assume) by each other’s presence, and basking in the anticipation of wedded harmony to come. Upon one unusual occasion, hardly a fortnight before the wedding, Miss Zinn and Baron von Mainz were strolling along the path above the river, accompanied at a discreet distance by Great-Aunt Edwina and Miss Narcissa Gilpin, when, of a sudden, the Baron evidently took a misstep, and brushed against Constance Philippa, so startling her that she released her silky white sunshade, which was carried off by the breeze, unfortunately in the direction of the river. It was lifted, and fell, not in the river itself but on a rock some yards below, an awkward climb to be sure, and perhaps even dangerous for any but a servant. Constance Philippa’s cheeks blushed with chagrin, for she did hate any sort of fuss, and the frail white sunshade with its lilac ribbons looked so very silly, caught on the rocks. To her relief, tho’ to her surprise as well, Baron von Mainz, in whom gallantry had evidently not o’erwhelmed common sense, did not offer to retrieve it, as an eager American youth might have done. Instead he told her, in his dry dignified voice: “We will acquire another pretty little parasol for you, Miss Kiddemaster—there is a plethora of such female appurtenances in your country, I daresay.”
IT WAS SHORTLY before this that Mrs. Zinn and Octavia, accompanied by a trusted manservant (Mr. Zinn having declined vociferously to come along), made their futile journey to Boston to attend a séance given by the new trance medium, “Deirdre of the Shadows.”
Alas—“Deirdre of the Shadows” was surely not their Deirdre, as they clearly grasped in the first minutes of her introduction: yet they hid their disappointment, and remained for the séance, heavy of heart, and only superficially engaged in the peculiar phenomena that followed.
The séance was dismayingly large, attended by some forty people, as a consequence of the new fame of “Deirdre of the Shadows” in the Boston area. Arrangements had been made beforehand for Mrs. Zinn and her daughter by Aunt Geraldine Miller, who, since the death of a favorite niece two years previously, had made an informal (some would say desperate) exploration of Spiritualist activities in the East, bravely defying family scorn and censure. (The men in particular were doubtful of this new “religion,” and had naught but contempt for such sensationalists and charlatans as the infamous Fox sisters of upstate New York, and Colonel McKenzie—many times exposed in the public press, yet continuing to draw zealots withal, and to accumulate sizable fortunes.) That Mrs. Zinn made the long journey not to participate in Spiritualist phenomena, but to seek out her lost daughter, perhaps added to the poignancy of the situation; but it must be admitted that Mrs. Zinn, being of a somewhat stoic nature, and inclined even to cynicism of a kind, had not truly expected to find her own Deirdre. “Is it—?” Octavia whispered, clearly frightened, and gripping her mother’s arm as if she were a little girl, at the first appearance of “Deirdre of the Shadows,” when a tall, slender, alarmingly pale girl with heavy-lidded eyes was led out, in a black silk cloak with ivory lining—but Mrs. Zinn, seeing at once the unhappy truth, said simply: “No. It is not.”
Guests that evening consisted of two sorts, those who were seated around a large oak dining table, and others who were of the class of observers, seated in straight-backed chairs lined against the walls. Mrs. Zinn and her daughter, heavily veiled, and rather embarrassed to find themselves in this company, were of the latter class, for Mrs. Zinn had emphatically declined Aunt Geraldine’s offer to assure them—through payment so high as to constitute a bribe, made to the gentleman manager of “Deirdre of the Shadows”—a place at the table, and a place, consequently, in the evening’s occult proceedings. “My interest in this very odd young woman has nothing to do with her alleged Spiritualist abilities,” Mrs. Zinn said, with dignity, “but only with her identity—that, and nothing more. If she is Deirdre I shall bring her back home to Bloodsmoor with me. If she is not—I shall go away again, as I have come.”
Since Deirdre’s disappearance, now nearly a twelve-month past, Mrs. Zinn had lapsed gradually into a state of mind that might be best described as “inexpressive”—even the Zinns’ financial worries (Mr. Zinn was now in debt $25,000 to his father-in-law), even the excitement of Constance Philippa’s imminent betrothal could not seem to rouse her to the natural and spontaneous expression of genuine feeling. Her frequent explosions of anger came and went so abruptly as to suggest a curious superficiality, as if the troubled lady lost interest at once in the very spasm of temper that o’ertook her. Whether she exhibited a laudable stoicism of a Christian sort, or whether it was a chilling apathy. I cannot judge, save to say that Prudence Zinn, after the birth of her third daughter Malvinia, in 1859, involving as it did a forty-two-hour labor of excruciating difficulty, attended by such a loss of blood as to raise the spectre, in her frightened husband’s heart, of her death, had never been quite the same Prudence Zinn again—not the forthright, outspoken, boldly assertive young woman, who had been raised to the rank of assistant headmistress of the Cobbett School for Girls by the age of twenty-nine, and who quite held her own, as we have seen, in the drawing rooms of intellectual Philadelphia of the Fifties. It might be said that her spirit was broken: less by the agony of the long labor, perhaps, for that ordeal did result in blessèd life (and from the first Malvinia was a beauti
ful baby, admired by all), than by the repetition of pregnancies, miscarriages, labors, births, and occasional deaths (for not all of Mrs. Zinn’s pregnancies resulted in life, but it would be morbid of me, and distracting from the main narrative, to enumerate these failures). Her love for Mr. Zinn, I hasten to say, remained steadfast, as did his love for her; the unitary nature of their wedded bliss could not be shaken, as indeed it cannot be shaken, once God has administered His blessing. And yet—Mrs. Zinn of 1859, still less Mrs. Zinn of 1880, was very distant from Miss Kiddemaster of 1853, and bore her, alas, only a vague family resemblance!