A Bloodsmoor Romance (29 page)

Among her cousins, Basil Miller was surely worthy of a young lady's fluttery interest, and Lieutenant Steven Bayard, particularly when he stood at attention in his dress greens, but they were merely
cousins
. . . and Constance Philippa could feel nothing for them save a somewhat frayed affection.

In truth, strange as I find it, the only person Constance Philippa had felt much emotion for, during her turbulent adolescence, was Miss Delphine Martineau, Malvinia's friend—and as bubble-headed, fickle, and vain as Malvinia herself! Miss Martineau was Malvinia's age exactly, and consequently two years younger than Constance Philippa. A terror at such silly games as Puss-in-the-Corner, very pretty, spoiled, giggly . . . without an ounce of intelligence, Constance Philippa thought contemptuously; and yet everyone adored her, especially the young men, and she very nearly vied with Malvinia as the belle of the Bloodsmoor Valley. Brown hair that appeared burnished, set in curls, braids, and ringlets; lovely cheeks upon which the faintest blush could be discerned; mischievous winking dark brown eyes . . . Alas, the girl had been married only a few weeks ago: and Constance Philippa, whom the very thought of weddings troubled, had absented herself from the ceremony and the surrounding festivities, giving so perfunctory an excuse that both Mr. and Mrs. Zinn commented on it. She did not mean, surely, to be rude to the Martineaus, or to slight a childhood friend on the day of her greatest happiness?

“She was not my friend but Malvinia's,” Constance Philippa said coldly.

Long ago the girls had played together, making little dresses for their dolls, long ago the Valley girls had been such good friends, in and out of one another's houses, and Mr. Zinn had made a jack-in-the-box and chickens-pecking (on a paddle) with his fretsaw, and Constance Philippa and Malvinia had painted them, and at casino Delphine had slapped down her cards, one! two! three! and the Zinn girls had exclaimed, laughing. Oh, long ago: and Christmas greetings elaborately scissored out of stiff colored paper and sprinkled with gold dust: and then there were Valentines on rose-scented paper, sometimes stiff with ornamentation—sequins, gilt, lace, strips of braid. Constance Philippa had scorned most of the girls' activities but she had made a Valentine, yes, she had made a Valentine, and a lovely big Valentine it was, eighteen inches high, painted with infinite care in reds and pinks, and the verse had been her own—or nearly:

Four hearts in one I do behold

They in each other do infold,

I cut them out on such a night

And send them to my heart's delight.

I choose you, D., for my Valentine,

I choose you out from all the rest,

The reason is,
I LIKE YOU BEST
.

But even at the age of fourteen Miss Delphine Martineau had received so many Valentines, from “young gentlemen” as well as from her girl friends, she took no special note of Constance Philippa's card: and so, as Constance Philippa told herself, the
ridiculous
and
degrading
episode passed.

Now she was to be married shortly; and, indeed, Miss Delphine Martineau was already married. And so, and so. She adjusted her veil, as it had grown damp where it touched her mouth, and peered out cautiously at the sun—what o'clock was it? When would they be summoned back to the Hall for tea? Baron von Mainz had been talking quietly of the picturesque vista spread out before them—and the chance configuration of clouds, which struck a particularly aesthetic note—and the fragrance of certain blossoms carried on the breeze. And then he spoke, still in a casual voice, of his tragic history, his personal history and that of the von Mainz family, which involved knighthood, and the Crusades, and the Archbishop Wilhelm IV, and the One Hundred Years' War, and the cathedral town of Mainz, and the great port of Hamburg, and fortunes in wheat won and lost, and the assassination in 1794 of the Baron Friedrich Ferdinand, his great-grandfather, by rebellious peasants—tho' this was perhaps not the time, the Baron allowed, to speak of such uncouth matters. (For Constance Philippa, roused from her daydream, had been staring at him quite openly.)

Strolling back to Kidde­master Hall, now preceded by their two amiable chaperons, the young affianced couple found themselves more than customarily silent; and at length the Baron said, in a voice perhaps edged with irony: “The Wheel of Fortune, which has dictated the lives of the von Mainz family, and the lives of most of the European nobility of our acquaintance, is perhaps not a familiar concept in your young country?—but it will be, my dear Constance Philippa; it will be.”

 

VERY LITTLE WAS
known of the Baron's personal history, apart from a brief summary of his business activities, which had been extensive, both before and after 1861, for Great-Uncle Vaughan Kidde­master had cautioned the Zinns—Mrs. Zinn in particular, whose tongue was unpredictable—against making “indiscreet” inquiries. “It will be enough for you to know,” the elderly gentleman said kindly, “that I have satisfied myself as to the young man's
worth,
in every sense of the word; and that I feel no hesitation whatsoever, at the prospect of bringing a foreigner into our family. And since it cannot be said,” Great-Uncle Vaughan continued, after a decorous pause, “that suitors are storming the Octagonal House—at least in pursuit of your Constance Philippa—I think we must rest with the sentiment that a
foreigner
might prove, under the circumstances, the very best investment of all.”

Enough to know, perhaps, and to rejoice in, that his was a nine-hundred-year-old name, honored and, for a time, feared, throughout Northern Europe. And that
Miss Constance Philippa Zinn
would become, by marriage, as if by magic, the
Baroness von Mainz.

Gradually Constance Philippa came to learn, however, that her fiancé had studied with Jesuits in Rouen, and had even contemplated for a time entering that prestigious order. (Fortunately for the Zinns, and for Constance Philippa's unborn babies, the Baron had drifted away from his early allegiance to Popery, and was perfectly content to be married in the Episcopal Church—wise, prudent man!) She learned that his father and brothers had been associated with the great English warehousing firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit & Sons, and that they had done a brisk trade in both England and the United States; and that the Baron himself, while still a young man, had acquired a part-interest in the American freighter
Jezebel,
which customarily docked in New Orleans, until its destruction by Union soldiers. (Not only was the Baron forced to suffer this loss—for insurance was inadequate, or the insurers unable to pay—but the vigorous trade with the Ivory Coast of Africa came to an abrupt halt: and the Baron's American partners, it was said, badly defrauded him of his investment.) It was true that “tragedy” had pursued him—and Constance Philippa was both disturbed and fascinated to learn that he had married a fifteen-year-old convent girl, an Italian princess, rumored to be of an angelic beauty and possessing a childlike innocence; that the young lady had died in the seventh month of pregnancy, which had been the seventh month of marriage as well (an abnormally enlarged fetus had “turned to stone” in her womb, whilst the rest of her, poor doomed child, had withered, a sickly yellow). After a twelve-month of mourning, the bereft young husband married again, a fabled English beauty whose slender, sylphlike figure was renowned in London society, and whose father had entered into a business partnership with him; but this marriage, too, ended in tragedy—the young English lady also died within the first year, of mysterious causes, a posthumous examination revealing a most curious distention and atrophying of the internal organs, particularly those of the lower belly, and, in the womb, a very small fetus, hardly frog-sized, which had also
turned to stone.
(This young lady, in submission to the demands of fashion, had had, some years before, an operation to remove her lower ribs, in order to guarantee a satisfactorily slender waist, which operation, I am somewhat disappointed to report, our own Octavia begged for; but Mr. Zinn, in his wisdom, forbade. The operation, however, being of a simple and mechanical nature, and pronounced altogether harmless by the surgeon who performed it, was deemed to have nothing at all to do with the cause of the young Baroness's death, which cause remained undetermined.)

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.