In all, Octavia enjoyed these lazy, cozy, fire-warmed visits in her great-aunt’s bedchamber, and, despite the innocence of her nature, and her devotion to her parents, she could not prevent her eye from traveling admiringly about, taking note of the crimson damask draperies that hung from gilt cornices, and the Belgian linen wallpaper with its swirling fleshy-pink floral design, and the laminated carved rosewood table by the bedside, upon which Great-Aunt Edwina’s herbal medicines and elixirs were set, and a stack of magazines and novels from the Cobbett Square Lending Library (for it was necessary, Great-Aunt Edwina believed, that she read her rivals—the energetic authoresses of such best-selling works as Clemence, the School-Mistress of Waveland, and Margaret’s Plighted Troth, and Jessamyn’s Wedding Day).
Lulled by the comfort of these visits, which oft stretched into several hours, Octavia came precariously close to confiding in her great-aunt—as she could not, of course, with her mother. Indeed, Great-Aunt Edwina, frequently in a drowsy, or melancholy, or garrulous condition, as a consequence of her elixirs, was sometimes so lax, as to confide in her: alluding to an “unfortunate” affair of the heart, many years previous; and some “grievous happenstance”; and, most enigmatically, a “biologic inheritance” carried secret amongst the Kiddemasters, which emerged in the family rarely, but, when it did, “proved fatal to all—guilty and innocent alike.” (Octavia wished strongly to inquire of her aunt, as to the details of this inheritance: might it be the case that her own blood was tainted, and that her offspring, one day, might carry a sort of curse? But she was too shy to venture the question.)
For her part, Octavia confessed that she had been “gravely wounded,” by Mr. Rumford’s public display of negligence in his courtship of her, since Deirdre’s abduction; and the more agitated, in that Mrs. Zinn was upset as well. She was too wise, however, to confess to her aunt certain of her feelings, of a decidedly romantic—nay, giddy—nature, pertaining to the coachman’s redheaded son: Sean McInnes, whose wide-spaced eyes were so brightly blue, and whose hair was so curly, and so wondrously thick, it quite left her breathless! And he had a habit of humming merrily to himself, and whistling, a gay insouciant sound with the power to pierce her breast like a knife blade!
Octavia confessed to no unseemly sentiment, regarding the coachman’s son; but she did allow, in a small, halting voice, that she was oft “o’erwhelmed” by thoughts of guilt, for the crime she and her sisters had committed, against Deirdre.
“Crime?” inquired the puzzled matron, fixing a stern gaze upon her niece. “I fail to understand you, Octavia. In what way are you and your sisters guilty of a crime, against that unfortunate girl?”
Octavia sat for some moments, in distressed silence, biting her lip, and kneading her damp handkerchief in her hand. Finally she spoke, softly, hesitant as an abash’d child: “Dear Aunt, I cannot say; I do not know. Perhaps it was my failure to call her back, as she ran weeping from us, to the rough river’s bank; perhaps it was my failure to curtail Malvinia’s acerbic tongue; or perhaps—ah, I know not!—it was my failure to love her, as my parents, and Our Lord Jesus Christ, bade me to do.”
Whereupon the elder woman stared at her for some time, in a very peculiar silence, during which one could hear the sombre ticking of the French ormolu clock on the mantel, and see the chaste winter sunshine winking on a little brass statue of the but partly clad Orpheus, on a nearby table. Then, finally, she spoke, in a voice nearly as hushed as Octavia’s: “My dear, that we are all sinful creatures, and sow as much misery as a consequence of omission, as of action, cannot be a surprise to us, at this date. But, do you not believe that Our Lord does forgive us such things?—if, indeed, failings they truly be?”
But Octavia had no reply, save a sudden outburst of tears—the which came upon her with such unexpected fury, she hid her o’erheated face in her hands, and wept all uncontrollably, as if her heart would break!—a spectacle the more compounded, and given greater poignancy, by the fact that the esteemed authoress could not withstand such a torrent, but joined her in these heartfelt tears, for upward of a half-hour.
Malvinia too was summoned to Kiddemaster Hall, she too was driven through the woods by a whistling, o’ercheerful young Irish driver, she too ascended the broad oval staircase, preceded by a silent female servant. But where Octavia hurried, blushing and out of breath, and grateful to be summoned, the spoiled Malvinia kept to her own indolent pace, yawning, sullen, even defiant: and not at all intimidated by Edwina Kiddemaster.
She curtsied gracefully, her eyes lowered, presenting herself to the older woman as a composed, demure, and even prim young lady, modestly attired in a blue Swiss voile dress with a molded bodice, and a white cashmere shawl begged from Octavia, and an afternoon cap with no more than a half-dozen flounces and ribbons and strips of lace. “And how do you find yourself, Malvinia?” Great-Aunt Edwina inquired, peering suspiciously at her, but discovering no flaw. “Are you well? Are your nights peaceful? Is your digestion satisfactory?” Malvinia answered her great-aunt in a low, respectful voice, her hands clasped together just beneath her bosom. Whether she was well or ill; whether her nights were peaceful, or disturbed by inchoate visions of her lost sister; whether her digestion was satisfactory or not—she surely would not confide in her aunt. So courteous but restrained answers tripped off her tongue, and Great-Aunt Edwina, tho’ continuing to stare with a rude suspicion, seemed to believe.
“I summon you here,” Edwina said, fussing with the sash of her ivory brocade bedjacket, “not because I care to make inquiries about the evidently futile investigation—I am quite resigned to failure along those lines, and to a permanent desuetude of such laws of nature as honor, chastity, courage, and obedience—for it is, after all, the year 1880—and I fear that some of us, harking back to a simpler, more gracious era, have outlived our time. (Ah!—please do not look so stricken, Malvinia—I assure you that I am in tolerably good health this afternoon, following a slight fever of some days and nights; but Dr. Moffet was kind enough to attend to me, and prescribed bleeding for both your grandmother and me, and I believe we are each the better for it tho’ I’ve felt too weak to venture down the hall to her chamber; and of course the poor thing hasn’t been able to see me for months. But do not express such alarm, my dear child, for I halfway suspect we old biddies will outlive younger and healthier persons!) No, my child, I have not summoned you here, and, no doubt, torn you away from far more fascinating company, in order to make inquiries about the police investigation, or to make inquiries about matters at the Octagonal House, how your dear, brave mother is managing her loss, and holding up under the chronic pressure of financial worries; whether your father has abandoned hope in retrieving his wayward daughter, and has returned to his workshop with ‘renewed zeal’—that piteous expression not, I assure you, being mine, but that of your slipshod grandfather the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as we are repeatedly given to know—which exalted position, guaranteeing a certain immunity from criticism, seems to have guaranteed, as well, a corruption of both language and judgment. No, my child,” the elderly matron said, now smiling placidly, and looking, of a sudden, somewhat girlish, and even conspiratorial, “I have summoned you to my invalid’s retreat on this snow-dimmed day, because your presence is wondrously cheering, to one of my condition; and because I am always anxious to know that my niece’s daughters are in tolerable health; and because I am so oft plagued with worry, and must be consoled, by knowing, my dear, that you are still with us: and not quite vanish’d into thin air.”
Malvinia stared, and had no need to simulate a pretty startled moue, at these puzzling words. Her manner was rather less polished than usual, and her lovely voice somewhat marred, by stammering: “That I—I—I am still with you? That I am not vanish’d into thin air?” She paused, and pressed a handkerchief to her bosom, and, regaining some of her composure, continued thusly: “You must remember, Aunt Edwina, that I am not so quick-witted as Constance Phi
lippa, nor so clever as Samantha; and I lack Octavia’s natural instinct, to comprehend the logic of her elders, with no ratiocinative effort. In what way, Aunt, might I not be still with you?”
It was oft to be recalled by Malvinia, in years to come, and, I believe, even recounted, with a certain fond nostalgia, in one or two conversations, with that kindly gentleman who would—ah, after what trials!—become her husband, how, at this curious moment, Miss Edwina Kiddemaster chose to speak in a casual, and even a perfunctory, manner: the while lounging most comfortably in her bed (uncorseted, it should be noted: but her charming brocade jacket, and her silk embroidered quilt, a China import, tastefully covered the corporeal expanse of the invalid, and truly did not offend the eye), amidst the luxuriant and familiar odors of an invalid’s room—that blend of warm flesh; tangy, sweet, and acrid medicines; balm; hyssop; rose leaves; pastries; and black walnut tea cake! Thus the esteemed woman of letters spoke: “Why—I know not—perhaps in the way that headstrong young ladies do sometimes disappear—headstrong, and heartless, and doomed—and very wicked: in a carriage—by train—by horseback, for all I know—alas, by balloon!—or by sailing ship, or— But, truly, my dear, your elderly aunt cannot know such things, save to shrink in revulsion from even their contemplation. The large capitals of our nation are, I would imagine, fairly thronged with your fallen and despicable creatures, of our frail sex: yet, again, I cannot know, and must insist that we change the subject. You are looking, my dear child, somewhat peakèd?” So, tho’ enfeebled by the frequent bloodletting, Edwina made an effort to heave herself forward in her bed, that she might grasp the handle of the Tiffany teapot, and proffer, to her surprised niece, a piece of tea cake: an exertion far in excess of her strength, and greeted with an exclamation of concern, and some gentle remonstrance, by Malvinia, who rose at once to assist.
The subject thus was forcibly changed, and never taken up again, to my knowledge.
It had always been Malvinia’s secret conviction, in which, I believe, she was not greatly mistaken, that she was Edwina Kiddemaster’s favorite niece, favored not only above her own sisters, but above the numerous young female relatives in Edwina’s family. Many were the times, when the proud old lady scolded her, with a sort of fussy intimacy; and then pressed upon her some dainty prepared by the cook, for Edwina alone—a coconut trifle, or a sugared pecan date bar, or, upon occasion, a chocolate meringue topped with brandied cherries; and bade her—nay, commanded her—to recline close to her invalid’s bed, and read aloud from one of the season’s new novels, for she greatly enjoyed Malvinia’s mellifluous voice, and needed, she said, to “keep abreast with her rivals, in the field of letters.” Upon other, more disturbing occasions, she bade Malvinia to speak her mind, as frankly as possible—the which injunction somewhat baffled Malvinia, who was not altogether certain, that she knew how: or that, in any case, she dared succumb to her great-aunt’s blandishments. (For there were, I hardly need record, divers disagreements and long-lingering vexations, and questions old and new, betwixt the two houses: many predating the Zinn girls’ births, and having to do, the sisters surmised, with the choice of Mr. Zinn as a husband for their mother—“Tho’ one would surely think,” Malvinia protested, “that, after more than a quarter-century, and Father’s exemplary work, the high-and-mighty Kiddemasters would have come round!”)
There were times, however, when the guarded Malvinia came near to confessing that, alas! she did think o’ermuch about young Cheyney, or not quite so feelingly as she should about Deirdre (in truth, I am bound to say, heartless Malvinia did not care a whit whether her sister ever returned to the Octagonal House). But she held her tongue, and diverted her aunt’s interest to other, more lightsome subjects tho’, in truth, the elderly woman seemed grateful, and even, at times, greedy, to hear any gossip at all: what amusing “outrage” the pretty Delphine Martineau had enacted, at a recent ball; what was whispered about poor Honora LeBeau Kale’s health—that unhappily plump lady, now weighing upward of two hundred and fifty pounds, being wheeled, in ermine and diamonds, to the opera, in a bath chair; with whom had Malvinia danced, at a recent ball; and whom had she refused in the past fortnight or so, thereby breaking his heart.
“You are not overly cruel to your numerous young admirers, I hope? Nor too capricious, as it is given out?” Thus Great-Aunt Edwina inquired, in a honeyed, and all but coquettish tone.
Whereupon Malvinia lowered her eyes, and adjusted a flounce on her skirt which had become lightly creased. Too cruel to my young men! she thought. How might I be “too cruel”? Random, unbidden thoughts assailed her: the memory of a long-forgotten gentleman whom, she supposed, she had hurt, many years ago: dear lank-limbed Mr. Malcolm Kennicott, an assistant of Reverend Hewett’s: and an acquaintance of her father’s. She had hurt him, she acknowledged, with both guilt and gratification, but of course she had been too young to grasp the significance of her action—only a child, in fact. The blame, like the emotion, had been his; it had not been hers.
After a courteous moment she said: “Dear Aunt, I should not know—unless by an instinct of my fallen nature, rather than that of my spiritual inheritance—how to be cruel; as for vulgar caprice, I deem it a feature of the comic operetta, and the ‘Haverly Mastoden Minstrels.’ ”
This remark adroitly, and purposefully, led Edwina to an inquiry into the cultural life of Philadelphia, which, bedridden as she was, she missed with infinite regret. Just the other day Miss Narcissa Gilpin had written an enthusiastic letter about the remarkable lecture, “Walking & Temperance,” delivered by Mr. Edward Payson Weston, the Walking Champion of the United States, at the Cobbett Square Church; and the renowned poetess Parthenope Brownrrigg had issued invitations to a small, exclusive group of persons, to attend a recitation of her long dramatic poem Ivory-Black: or, a Romance of the Shadow World—a work so moving, Miss Gilpin reported, that several ladies began to weep, and she herself, who had lost so many belovèd members of her family to death in the past several years, quite apart from the loss of a favorite grandnephew at Shiloh, and four—or might it have been five?—infants at birth, was quite o’ercome.
And of course there were concerts, and pantomimes, and operettas, and grand opera (the magnificent soprano Clara Louise Kellogg had recently played Marguerite in Faust, which was Edwina Kiddemaster’s favorite opera—alas, to have missed that performance!); there were Shakespearean tragedies, native melodramas, Spanish dancing troupes, lighthearted burlesques. It was a pity, Edwina said, that she would be forced to miss the great Tommaso Salvini in Othello, for she had read ecstatic reviews of his New York performance; and the controversial but greatly gifted Orlando Vandenhoffen would arrive soon, at the Varieties, in Daly’s Under the Gaslight—still on tour after many years. “And, alas, I must miss them all,” she said with a half-bitter smile, “confined as I am by my remorseless sensitivity, which seems to intensify with the years, while others of ruder, more robust health disport themselves freely in the world, and take their pleasures where they will.”
Malvinia murmured that it was indeed a pity; and, obeying a near-imperceptible gesture of her aunt’s that she slice them each another piece of the excellent walnut tea cake, leaned gracefully forward, while Great-Aunt Edwina continued to speak in a mournful voice. She must content herself, she supposed, with a vicarious satisfaction, through the letters of her numerous friends and relatives in the city, who each wrote her, at the very least, thrice weekly (for all the Kiddemaster women enjoyed a lively correspondence); and through the firsthand reports of her dear nieces who were young enough, and strong enough, to confront the manifold treasures of the cultural world, without tiring, or becoming inordinately dazzl’d.
“Indeed, dear Aunt,” Malvinia said with the utmost civility, “I pray you are not proved greatly mistaken.”
“I SHALL NOT, Father,” Samantha cried. “Not again! Not so soon! I cannot.”
“My dear child,” Mr. Zinn said, peering at her over his wire-rimmed eyeglasses, and smiling hi
s gentlest, most delicately ironic smile, “none of us can; but most of us shall.”
And so she acquiesced.
(In any case, as Octavia kindly pointed out, not sensing the barb her innocent words contained, it was hardly as if Great-Aunt Edwina troubled her very often—many days might pass before a message came for Samantha; whereas Octavia and Malvinia were expected to visit at least twice weekly.)
“Father, I am in the midst of—” Samantha began in a whining voice.
“Daughter, we are always, I hope, in the midst of—!” Mr. Zinn said in a tone both gruff and jocular, turning back to the raised pine board upon which he was working.
Samantha’s small plain prim face hardened, but already, swiftly, she had snatched off her filthy apron, and was tidying up her end of the long workbench, putting her diagrams and papers and pencils and calibrating instruments and logarithmical tables safely in her drawer. The Zinn workshop, like the workshop of any industrious inventor, was hardly a model of neatness: but Samantha knew from past experience that mischievous Pip, rousing himself from his nap by the stove, might scurry over to see what his youngest mistress had been doing all morning, and, Mr. Zinn’s presence notwithstanding, manage to do some playful bit of damage to her drawings. (The remarkable—and, indeed, ingenious—little spider monkey had years ago acquired the habit of tinkering with Samantha’s work, sometimes altering it so subtly that hours might pass before the bewildered girl discovered his trick! He possessed by instinct an uncanny ability to mimic those mysterious squiggles and shapes human beings employ as mathematical calculations; but he could, of course, do no more than mimic, and he never dared interfere with his master’s cluttered workbench, to anyone’s knowledge.)