A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates
It was rare that any admirer, even so well dressed, and so clearly cultured an admirer, could force his way backstage; unless of course he was known to the manager or the troupe, or had some special function. This handsome young gentleman was a total stranger: Malvinia accepted the bouquet blindly, in some confusion, and was about to inquire of the young man who he was, and how he came to be backstage, when he bowed shortly, and murmured a farewell, and hurried away.
“Wait,” Malvinia cried, “sir—please—”
She stared after him. He was a stranger: and yet he had looked familiar. And his voice, tho’ a stranger’s voice, was familiar too.
An attractive young man, in his mid-twenties, perhaps; no older. With thick wavy dark hair, neatly parted on the left; and thick, severely defined brows; a strong chin; beautifully chiseled, and rather soft lips; a graceful figure; an air of—how to express it?—subtlety, humor, charm, irony—knowingness. He was elegantly attired in a tailcoat, trousers, and waistcoat (the waistcoat being of claret velvet, with gold tissue woven into an agreeable, and not overly busy, pattern); he must have been carrying his top hat, and his gloves. So quickly did he thrust the bouquet at Malvinia, so rapidly was the transaction finished, she felt quite dismayed—and rather cheated. Ah, she should have liked to detain the mysterious young man for a few minutes, to question him, and to become acquainted . . . !
Only then did the excited young woman think to examine her bouquet, and the reader can imagine her astonishment, when she discovered it to be, not the long-stemmed roses to which she was accustomed, but a most curious—a most amazing—bouquet, of a sort she had never received (tho’ she remembered clearly having given): an unwieldly assortment of wilted tea roses, and weed flowers distinguished by their ugly pallor: turkey beard, fly poison, miterwort, and death camas!
“Dear God!” Malvinia shrieked aloud; and, in her alarm, allowed the astonishing bouquet to fall to the floor.
VI
Ivory-Black; or, The Spirit World
THIRTY-SIX
It was not many months after that bodeful visit to the Fanshawe Theatre, by Deirdre of the Shadows and her companion, the redoubtable Countess Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, that the young medium was approached by a representative of the Society for Psychical Research, of Gramercy Park, with the proposal that she apply for membership in the Society, so that she might be registered as a practicing medium: which is to say, the Society wanted to investigate her, and publish the results, assuring her of an “objective” and “just” assessment.
Madame Blavatsky naturally warned her young comrade against any such incursion on the privacy of her work, explaining in her hoarse, florid voice, with many an impulsive hug of her little “Lolo”—for such was Madame’s sobriquet for Deirdre, for reasons of a particularly maudlin and distasteful sort—that the infamous Society for Psychical Research, the onetime English Phasmatalogical Society, had not Deirdre’s welfare in mind, nor even the presumed welfare of her future clients, but wanted merely to persecute; to hound; to pillory; to crucify. Skeptics, atheists, boastful agnostics, scientists of a Darwinian stripe, with only a very few fair-minded members, and a very few who believed in Spirit World, and its efficacy in this world: they were particularly cruel, Madame warned, to the female sex, for reasons she did not care to explore. “They will write you up in their papers, and cast doubt upon your every achievement, and most of all upon your motive,” Madame said. An imposing woman, tho’ grossly fat, and costumed in a miscellany of skirts and capes and heavy medallions, giving off an odor, not altogether unpleasant, but uniquely Madame, of garlic, warm flaccid mammalian flesh, the strong aridity of Turkish tobacco, and linen that was less than fresh—imposing nonetheless, and not accustomed to being contradicted. “Under the guise of wishing to help, Lolo, the Society merely wishes to expose, and enjoys in particular the spectacle of a comely young lady tormented in public. I know, my dear; I know only too well. You should have seen how these American gentlemen persecuted me!”
Deirdre did not reply, but continued to frown—in fear, in apprehension, or in simple obstinacy?—at the stiff sheet of stationery in her lap, embossed with the Society’s gold letterhead; and Madame, sighing impatiently, rolled a cigarette, her pudgy beringed fingers working expertly and mechanically. “I have only your best interests at heart, child, not only in order to discharge my duties—for the spirits have, after all, entrusted you to me—but because of the bond between us, which is unmistakable. Remember that this is the country, these are the people, who burnt witches not so very long ago, and who harbor a fierce hatred for those of us who would bring them salvation—those of us, I cannot but observe, who are of the female gender. In recent months I have been informed—by my faithful chelas, and by disinterested persons who wish only that Theosophy be treated with respect—of the extent and magnitude of the conspiracy against belief in the Mahatmas; and by the passion with which they launch their crucifixion campaign against me. Tho’ you are not a chela, dear Lolo, nor even a member of my society, at the present time, it is impossible that you should have escaped contamination from Blavatsky!”—exploding here into hacking laughter, and shaking her massive head so stridently, wisps of her graying crinkled hair sprang loose, and the scarab brooch that fastened her scarlet neckerchief about her neck tore at the thin fabric.
Deirdre raised her large dark limpid eyes to Madame’s face. She said softly: “Surely contamination is not . . . ? ”
“I jest, I merely jest,” Madame said, inhaling smoke from her long brown cigarette, and reaching out to squeeze Deirdre’s arm with such energy, the many bracelets on her arm rattled. “I am but reading their minds, my dear. For I believe I know precisely how those minds work.”
Madame’s mirth having now subsided, she settled her bulk more comfortably in her chair, and smoked her cigarette with an angry relish, and spoke again of the evils of “objective” scientific research, and the Darwinian-Luciferian conspiracy to “annihilate” faith in the supernatural, and the insistence on the part of the Mahatmas (in hourly contact with Madame, tho’ secreted away in Tibet, in the remotest mountain sanctuaries) that Madame’s young charge shun the notorious Society—else she would regret it. Exhaling smoke, coughing, waving her beringed hands, Madame spoke more particularly of the wickedness of one Percy Dodd, the president of the New York chapter of the Society for Psychical Research; and, of course, tho’ this had occurred some months before Deirdre’s arrival, the scurrility of the infamous Colonel Lynes, writing in the Graphic (itself a scurrilous gutter paper), who had dared to say in print that Countess Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was an imposter . . . and who had even challenged her aristocratic background. “The gravest, the most unforgivable, of insults,” Madame said in a low fierce voice. “Ah, we Russians know what it is, to seek a just revenge upon our enemies!—we have known for many, many centuries! My father, as I have told you, was a captain of horse artillery in the Czar’s army, and he did not stint to punish mutineers within his ranks, or any enemy of the Motherland, no matter the sentiments of his own heart. The slightest infraction of the rules might bring a young cadet one thousand blows with a birch rod before the entire assembled Corps—my father being certain that the company doctor stood at attention nearby, to intervene when the boy’s heart seemed about to stop. Whippings, floggings, deaths by firing squad. . . . Cruel, you may think, with your New World notions, but necessary nonetheless, as the Czars have always known. Indeed, if a soldier died under punishment, the blows continued until the punishment had been meted out on the dead body. . . . But I digress; I am dreaming,” Madame said with a small smile. She fixed her large, pouched, rather reptilian eyes upon the girl’s face, and quoted in falsetto, from the slanderous Lynes’s piece: “ ‘We regard this Russian “countess” neither as the mouthpiece of hidden Tibetan seers, as she and her fellow Theosophists claim, nor as a mere vulgar adventuress; we think Blavatsky has achieved a title to permanent remembrance as one of the most accomplished and ingenious impostors in history.’ ”
Madame shuddered; with the result that her formidable corset sighed and creaked, and the wattled flesh about her neck trembled. The pouched eyes gave forth a veritable blaze of scorn, yet one might have detected a certain proudful gratification in her manner: for to be heralded, in print, as both accomplished and ingenious, and unique in history, was surely a remarkable feat for a Russian immigrant of impoverished status, who had come to our tolerant shores in steerage, with thousands of other motley European riffraff, as recently as 1873! Indeed, Madame so frequently quoted Colonel Lynes, to all who would listen, one cannot help but conclude that she relished his words, even as they infuriated her.
She exhaled blue smoke in a great cloud, and made a perfunctory gesture to wave it away, for Deirdre’s eyes watered, and her throat constricted, in the presence of Madame’s strong Turkish cigarettes: yet the child was loath to reveal discomfort. “Yes, yes, to know one’s enemies . . . to know, and to take care . . . to contemplate, to plan strategy, and weapons . . . It is a Russian trait, and a noble one; but I fear it is somewhat alien to you, and makes you stiffen with distaste,” she said, with an amiable nonchalance, one eyelid winking in Deirdre’s direction. “But I am so much older, dear Lolo, than you, on the Earth Plane alone! . . . and so much older, and so much more sadly wiser, in the wisdom of many lives; of which I will not speak at the present time, for it is inappropriate, and would only distress us both. But you must keep in mind, my child, that your career as a medium is still in its early stages, no matter the acclaim you have received among believers, and the interest that widens almost daily, among nonbelievers; no matter, too, the fees and gifts and offers of hospitality that tumble into your dainty little lap, without your appearing (ah, you are so delightful!—may you never change) to condescend to notice. Yet the career is still in its early stages, and may well encompass, in its maturity, a sphere of influence of an international nature, which cannot fail, I do not hesitate to prognosticate, to bring you a modicum of wealth. Indeed, were I not totally devoted to my own pathway, to the wisdom of my Mahatmas, I would be inclined to take you more securely beneath my wing, and be your earthly mother, nay, mother and father alike—for you are so innocent, are you not, dear Deirdre?—and so lonely—”
Another young lady, of a more normal, not to say more delicate, constitution, might have colored becomingly at so florid an outburst; but little Deirdre simply continued to stare at the older woman, her face as inexpressive as a plaster mask, and very nearly as pale. It was true that since the modest start of the mediumship of Deirdre of the Shadows, now some years ago, in Boston, a fair amount of financial rewards had been garnered, including gifts of outright cash (in containers as varied as alligator-hide pouches, and purses of gold thread, and touching little volumes containing the photographs of dead infants in their caskets—infants whose souls, now adequately matured in Spirit World, were able to speak to their bereft parents, through the medium’s art); it was true that a great variety of gifts had been received, some far more valuable than others, tho’ all honorable; and the offers of hospitality!—at the present time, for instance, Deirdre was living in New York City as the guest of Mrs. Holtman Strong, a widow with more than ordinary interests in the occult, and more than ordinary financial resources (her husband, the late Holtman Strong, had been an early investor in the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad, and an associate of the Du Ponts—who, of late, had decided to drop the “de Nemours” from their name): the first floor of the Strongs’ sumptuous brownstone, at 2 Fifth Avenue, being given over to Deirdre’s use, along with a small retinue of servants, and her own two-seater brougham. (Mrs. Strong was an elderly-appearing woman, in fact not many years older than Madame Blavatsky’s robust fifty-three, whose losses to death in recent years—husband, daughter, daughter-in-law, infant grandson—had so greatly distressed her, her psychical as well as her physical health was threatened: one can well imagine the widow’s gratitude, that Deirdre of the Shadows had been able to put her in contact with some of her deceased loved ones, and, upon two distinct occasions, to summon forth the ectoplasmic shape of Mr. Strong!) It was true, as Madame Blavatsky observed, that Deirdre’s career was but yet in its early stages, and promised a ripe harvest in the years to come: but it was not altogether true that the inscrutable young lady took no notice of these worldly, if not to say materialistic, facts.
She studied Madame’s heavy, ravaged, yet still rather handsome face, with its Calmuck cheekbones, and its almost too ostentatiously “hypnotic” eyes.
A long moment passed: Madame’s smile grew somewhat forced, and the creases beside her mouth rather more pronounced.
“That the Society for Psychical Research has been unfriendly to your cause, is certainly regrettable,” Deirdre said slowly, in a voice so soft Madame had to strain to hear, “and Colonel Lynes’s attack in particular is heinous: but the Society’s curiosity about me is something quite different, for, as Mr. Dodd explains in his letter, a judicious investigation would clear the way for my being invited to join the Society, as a practicing medium; and, as it were, licensed. I would—tho’ the gentleman doesn’t say this—become respectable. And as only three percent of the mediums investigated by the Society are judged legitimate, and given the Society’s imprimatur, I cannot but think that the opportunity is a felicitous one; and would greatly aid me in what you call, Madame, so very kindly, tho’ rather too ambitiously, my career. And so—”
“Beware, Lolo, beware!” Madame interrupted, knocking ashes onto her lap, in her agitation, “I catch the drift of your ingenuous thought, and must warn you: the Society is composed for the most part of jealous, grasping individuals, souls very low on the planes of incarnation, and atheistical in the most extreme sense. They are men of science, which they have made their religion—a religion opposed to all we believe in, and dedicated to eradicate your influence. No, no,” Madame said, shaking her massive head emphatically, “and again no: I cannot allow you to consider such folly. I thought I had explained how such persons are your natural enemies, and how my Russian blood rejoices to do battle with avowed enemies, in the Czar’s very spirit: but on our own terms, dear Lolo, not on theirs. To fight in the very sanctuary of the enemy, in the Society’s headquarters itself!—folly, pride, Luciferian temerity—”
Deirdre sat without moving, however, staring at the toe of Madame’s boot, and a small thin smile played about her lips, evanescent as a firefly. Perhaps because she and Madame were speaking in the parlor of Mrs. Strong’s home, and not in Madame’s own parlor, at the Lamasery on Forty-seventh Street, she enjoyed a certain calm, and a certain stubborn strength; perhaps because the decision was not in truth her own, but one guided by Spirit World, she could withstand Madame’s avalanche of words, and her still more tempestuous outpouring of emotion. Or was it simply a belated manifestation of Deirdre’s perversity—observed many pages back in this chronicle, on the very occasion, the reader may recall, of her having been spirited away in the outlaw balloon, to a destiny no one could have foretold? Long ago the Zinns and Kiddemasters whispered amongst themselves, “Deirdre goes her own way,” and “Deirdre is a troubled young lady,” and even—with what unsettling prescience!—“Deirdre is haunted”: yet not even the boldest among them (Malvinia, it may have been, or Great-Aunt Edwina) could have prognosticated to what extremes that perversity might bring her, or to what fugitive company.
Madame had been speaking rapidly for some minutes, her pouched eyes glittering with moisture (engendered rather more by anger than by sorrow), the ashes of her Turkish cigarette liberally scattered across her massive bosom; now she paused, breathing hoarsely, and waited for Deirdre to speak, and to give her answer. It would have taken no acute observer to note how the young lady’s stare had turned glassy, and her breathing so greatly reduced, she seemed more a waxworks statue than a warm, living, sentient being.
How bitter it is, your heart!—your heart!—so a faint silvery voice sounded, from out of the most shadowed corner of the parlor, where a heavy broca
Madame did not hear; or, being a veteran of such phenomena, chose not to be distracted. She continued to stare at her young charge, awaiting an answer.
And the answer was forthcoming, albeit slow, and halting, and grave, and slyly adamant. “It is the spirits’ wish, dear Madame,” Deirdre said, her pale lips scarcely moving, and her gaze still glassy and unperturbed, “and not my own. That I submit to Mr. Dodd’s proposal—that I go forth, without apprehension, confident of their loving protection—and my own honest abilities—that I dedicate myself to bringing the two worlds more closely together: it is not my wish, Madame, but the spirits’, and I have no choice, and, indeed, no desire, but to acquiesce.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
When Deirdre Bonner was but four years of age she contracted an especially virulent strain of measles, and was confined to her sickbed with a temperature of 104 degrees. Her distraught parents kept vigil through the night, day upon day, fearing that their little angel would be carried off, for many a child has died of so minor an illness as measles; and poor Deirdre’s skin fairly burned to the touch!
One night, as the twelve strokes of midnight were sounded by the ponderous bells of old Trinity Church, not a half-mile distant, it seemed to both Mr. and Mrs. Bonner that something very peculiar fluttered about their little girl’s room. Mrs. Bonner, laying aside the Bible (for she and Mr. Bonner had been reading from it in turns, the Gospels primarily), whispered: “Who—or what—is it? Is something present?” Deirdre slumbered fitfully on her pillow, her dark-lashed eyelids trembling, and her tiny fists clenching and unclenching; her fever gave off a faint radiant heat, it seemed, quivering in the air about the bed. “Who is it?” the frightened woman asked. “What do you want?” Mr. Bonner sought to calm her all the while, by gripping her hand, and then both her hands, firmly in his. There was nothing present, he assured her in a low whisper: nothing: she must be calm, else Deirdre would be disturbed.