Not many weeks later, the reckless child eloped; and boasted to all the world that she was in love with her seducer. And Mr. Zinn, in great shock, inquired of his wife how it had happened that his innocent daughter had made the acquaintance of an actor!—and how it was, that no one in the family had known of the dangerous circles in which she had been moving. “She is wicked,” Mrs. Zinn shouted, covering her ears, “she is marked with wickedness!—it is inevitable, and the blame cannot be laid on us.”
Her answer was so unanticipated, and so wildly eccentric, Mr. Zinn scarcely knew how to reply. “Marked with wickedness?” he asked.
His wife turned stubbornly away. And would not face him. And said, in a low gratified murmur: “And the blame cannot be laid on us.”
THIRTY
In the months that followed the funeral of Sarah Kiddemaster—an event attended by so many weeping mourners, the old village church was well-nigh filled—a subtle change crept upon Bloodsmoor: and drear, and dismal, and darksome the days proceeded, one upon another. Rare were substantial moments of sunshine, but greatly valued; and the family counted itself blessèd, if something felicitous occurred: the triumph of Great-Aunt Edwina’s several Philadelphia lectures, the successful application for a patent out of the Zinn laboratory (for a minor improvement, developed in fact by Samantha, in the printing key frame for the blind, an English invention of the early 1850’s: this being a fascinating contraption that had caught the eye of father and daughter alike, who had read of it, and studied its blueprints, in an American inventors’ journals).
Alas, reports snaked their way to Bloodsmoor of the increasing fame of Malvinia Morloch, who had played Rosalind in As You Like It in New York, with Orlando Vandenhoffen as her leading man; and of the fame—or notoriety—of the controversial trance medium Deirdre of the Shadows, now said to be associated, in ways not clear, with the redoubtable Russian “Countess,” Madame Helena Petrovna de Blavatsky. But no news came of Constance Philippa, save cruelly confusing reports: a lone woman answering to her general description (of unusual height, and breadth of shoulders) had been sighted, heavily veiled, in a second-class coach bound for St. Louis, Missouri; a lone woman of similar attributes had been sighted exchanging sharp words with the maître d’ of the dining room at the exclusive St. Nicklaus Hotel on Park Avenue, New York City—for single women were not allowed into such establishments past six in the evening, and were not generally encouraged to dine therein, at any hour of the day.
“How absurd,” Octavia said to Samantha, incensed, “such gossip! Constance Philippa has no reason to journey to St. Louis: no one does. And why would she, of all people, make an attempt to dine at the St. Nicklaus, when it is exactly the sort of place she abhorred, as formality and elegance so badly discomfited her?”
Samantha said softly: “I cannot speculate as to Constance Philippa’s motives, any more than I can speculate as to her whereabouts. Whilst she lived in this house, as my sister, I must confess—I scarcely knew her.”
Octavia drew herself up to her full height, which was some two or three inches greater than Samantha’s; and pressed a hand against her plump bodice. “An extraordinary thing to say, Samantha!—but of course you are only jesting.”
IT MAY HAVE been as a direct consequence of Sarah Kiddemaster’s funeral (for it was there they met again, however briefly), or it may have been a groundless accident, but Mr. Lucius Rumford suddenly resumed his visits to the Octagonal House, with the obvious intention of pursuing his courtship of Octavia, whose surprise was outweighed only by her delight, as one might well imagine. For Mr. Rumford of Rumford Hall was one of the most distinguished gentlemen in all of Bloodsmoor, albeit a widower of indeterminate age, and a retired Lutheran minister, with a long narrow ponderous horse’s face, and a perpetual dry cough.
Dare I hope? the trembling Octavia scribbled in her diary. Dare I—after so long, and such sorrow?
She studied herself for long intense minutes in the mirror, in the secrecy of her bedchamber, and felt alternately despair, and encouragement, and despair again: for her face was lacking in beauty of any dramatic sort, yet again her brown eyes were warm, and appealing; but then her complexion—had it not grown sallow in recent months, and lost its maidenly bloom? I fear I am unworthy of any gentleman’s admiration, she wrote, in a timid pinched hand, and yet—I must have hope.
It is true that Octavia had once loved the coachman’s red-haired son Sean (now off to make his fortune—who knew where); and true, too, she had once loved Malvinia’s handsome suitor Cheyney Du Pont de Nemours (according to rumor, newly engaged to a Charlottesville, Virginia, heiress); but now her thoughts steadfastly attached themselves to Mr. Rumford, who had, she imagined, cared for her all along . . . but had been prevented from continuing his courtship for reasons not in his control. (Rumford Hall had been in financial straits for some time, it was said. There was a mortgage on the buildings, and some of the land had been sold; and the ne’er-do-well elder son—a young man Octavia’s age, or older—had accumulated a considerable gambling debt, before abandoning all, and running away to sea.) The vague tale had come to Octavia’s burning ears by way of Mrs. Zinn, who had heard it from Great-Aunt Edwina, who had heard it from one of the Philadelphia Butterfields, that Lucius Rumford had “tried his hand” with the young widow Backus, a Butterfield heiress, but had been “sent packing”—for what reason, Octavia had not learned. “Such rumors are the concoctions of idle minds,” Mrs. Zinn said stoutly, “and you are not to take them seriously. For all we know there is another Lucius Rumford—not of Bloodsmoor—a total stranger—and it is quite futile to become upset. In my youth,” Mrs. Zinn added, strangely, her voice for a moment faltering, “in my youth, dear Octavia, I very nearly succumbed to despair, overhearing rumors about your father which I knew, in my heart, were untrue: and how unfortunate for us all, had I not come to my senses!” Mother and daughter were so suddenly moved, they embraced each other, and Octavia, pure of heart as any child, wept upon her mother’s broad shoulder. “There, there,” Mrs. Zinn said, comforting her. “Mr. Rumford is an honorable man: you can see it in his eyes. And Grandfather Kiddemaster has, I believe, already spoken with him.”
And so indeed it was. But the precise terms of Grandfather Kiddemaster’s arrangement, and whether he, or Mr. Rumford, had struck the shrewdest bargain, Octavia was never to know.
THE AUSTERITY & dignity of his face, Octavia carefully noted, writing in her secret diary when all of the house slumbered, the patience in his smile—that air of God-fearing sobriety—mature virility—a strength forged by suffering—the sagacity of his eyes, which are gray—or a very pale blue— It alarmed her, and caused her poor silly heart to hammer, that this honorable gentleman loved her: that he had spoken for her; and wished her to be his bride!
How shall I make myself worthy? she wondered. Only through the counsel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Great-Aunt Edwina has given me some of her books—a priceless resource.
CONVERSATION WITH MR. RUMFORD was ordinarily rather strained, for not only were topics scarce, and Octavia’s venturing uncertain, but the gentleman was troubled with a dry rasping cough, and the need to blow his nose frequently in his handkerchief. He inquired after her health, and the health of her parents; he inquired as to her particular opinion of the weather—had it struck her as too hot, or too cold; too gusty; too humid; intemperate to any significant degree? He spoke very briefly of his own health, and the weather some four miles away, at Rumford Hall. He did not, of course, ever allude to his first wife (deceased now for some years), nor did he speak except vaguely of his children; and his only outburst, having to do with his misfortune in pipeline investment, as a consequence of “criminal” monopolizing on the part of John D. Rockefeller, terminated in a ferocious spasm of coughing, and was not resumed.
It was a solemn and dignified occasion, upon which Mr. Rumford presented his fiancée with a small but very comely agate ring, set in antique silver; and the young lady’s excited shyness was such,
she could barely bring herself to speak, and cast numerous wild glances toward the doorway—as if, for some fanciful reason, she imagined figures hiding just outside it, around the corner, eavesdropping, pressing their knuckles to their mouths, to keep from laughter!—only one of several eccentric but harmless excogitations of those last days of maidenhood.
She fancied she rose from her bed to light a lamp, and saw that the agate ring was inscribed in initials other than her own: for of course it was an antique ring, it had been used practicably before, she could not demand to be the first woman to wear it!—so she counseled her tripping heart.
But the quivering lamplight revealed nothing: no initials at all. She studied the ring’s narrow band, and ran her finger lightly across it, and was quite certain she did feel an inscription: but, try as she could, she could see nothing. A queer phantasmagoria has gripped my heart, she wrote in her diary, perchance it is jealousy?—a signal of my budding love for my husband-to-be.
Nor could she see anything by daylight either. Tho’ by daylight, it seemed that she could feel the inscription all the more clearly, with her fingertip.
“Mother,” Octavia said, some days later, when Mrs. Zinn and Octavia sat companionably in the parlor, doing needlepoint, and a drear but romantic wind howled about the gabled roof of the Octagonal House, “Mother, shall I learn a great deal about the previous Mrs. Rumford; or do you suggest that I make no inquiries, so as not to disturb Mr. Rumford?”
Mrs. Zinn did not reply for so many minutes, it seemed to her daughter that perhaps she had not heard. Her strong fingers continued with their brisk mechanical work; her needle flashed; her gaze was hooded and inscrutable. Octavia looked upon her with both love and trepidation, as the guardian of certain grave secrets: a stout woman of advanced middle age, her pursed lips firmly bracketed in flesh, her color rather ruddy, her gaze either blunt and challenging and intimidating, or oddly evasive. On these informal at-home evenings Mrs. Zinn wore a fairly plain poplin-and-woollen dress, of a neutral shade approaching dark gray, with a tidy white muslin apron, and a lace-trimmed bodice; and her brown hair, now liberally shot with silver, was all but covered by her flounced cotton cap. She had been Octavia’s dear Mother for a benign eternity, it seemed, and Octavia felt sometimes choked with panic, that she must one day soon leave this warm sewing corner, and her mother, and take up residence—who knew where!
Mrs. Zinn replied at last, with some reluctance: “Such a question indicates, to my mind, an unwholesome sort of introspection—nay, an actual brooding—upon what is to come, rather than an active engagement upon what is. In the matter of marital relations, my dear daughter,” Mrs. Zinn said, frowning at her rapidly moving fingers, as the needle flashed and winked, “it is always best to think not at all: in the present, to think not of the future, nor of the past; and not even, if the trick be mastered, of the present itself. For, as the wisdom of the Old Testament instructs us, ‘This too shall pass.’ ”
At this point Mrs. Zinn did glance up at Octavia, who was staring at her, rather too hopefully. But her gaze did not hold: it was only a sort of punctuation. “ ‘This too shall pass,’ ” Octavia murmured. “Ah yes: I will remember. Thank you, dear Mother.”
COUSIN ROWENA KALE and her two youngest children came to Kiddemaster Hall for a fortnight’s visit, and so Octavia enjoyed the company of a sisterly young woman not so many years her senior: the evident fact that Cousin Rowena was soon expecting another child, and the apparent fact that there was some difficulty with her husband, not being touched upon, as matters too sensitive to be broached, Octavia and Rowena chatted for the most part about details of the forthcoming marriage, and necessities of Octavia’s trousseau. Grandmother Kiddemaster’s enormous rosewood wardrobe was to be Octavia’s—an inheritance of great value, both sentimental and practical—and so the young women set busily to work inscribing the many drawers, and taking out the year-old silver paper, in order to replace it with fresh, and preparing “sweet-bags” of powdered mace, dried leaves of southernwood and dragonwort, extract of ambergris, sweet marjoram, hyssop, roses, Tonquin beans, Florentine orrisroot, musk, and civet: for the magnificent wardrobe was quite old, and badly required perfuming.
When, as happened from time to time, the two young women found themselves safely alone, with not even a servant near, it was oft the case that, in an undertone, topics of a somewhat coarse nature were discussed: whether, “in her present condition,” Rowena sometimes craved strange and exotic foods, of a kind not available in Bloodsmoor (for, shyly, Octavia had heard of such cravings, and wondered if she might soon experience them herself); whether details were forthcoming, of the alleged villainy of Delphine Martineau’s husband, Mr. Ormond (who was rumored—alas!—to be a secret gambler, and an imbiber of alcoholic spirits); whether Bloodsmoor knew of the “solitary, veiled, broad-shouldered” female who had attended each session of the trial of that infamous assassin Charles Guiteau, and had laughed with raucous enthusiasm at the defendant’s frequent outbursts of “wit”; whether—and here Cousin Rowena’s voice did appreciably drop—the Zinns ever spoke of “Malvinia Morloch.”
For the most part, however, the young women in their morning dresses and caps busied themselves with the rosewood wardrobe, taking especial care with the inscriptions for the pretty little drawers, for it would not do, as Rowena stressed, for Octavia, as a young bride, to demonstrate to her husband, in however innocent and inconsequential a way, a natural inclination toward slovenliness. Stiff sheets of white linen stationery, each measuring two inches by four, were inserted with care beneath the bone and ivory drawer knobs, on them being written in a perfect hand—
Stockings (Silk) Lace (White)
Stockings (Cotton) Lace (Gold)
Stockings (Lisle) Head Dress
Stockings (Wool) Habit Skirt
Slippers (Satin) Collars (Cotton)
Slippers (Silk & Cotton) Collars (Silk)
Caps (Morning) Petticoats (Linen)
Caps (Afternoon) Petticoats (Cotton)
Caps (Evening) Handkerchiefs (Cotton)
Caps (Night) Handkerchiefs (Linen)
Veils (Lace) Neckerchiefs (Silk)
Veils (Tulle) Neckerchiefs (Cotton)
Bands (Velvet & Sateen) Ribbons
Bands (Cotton & Poplin) Fringing
Flowers (Sunday) Muffs (Fur)
Flowers (Everyday) Muffs (Wool)
Shoes (Sunday) Chemises (Cotton)
Shoes (Everyday) Chemises (Calico)
Feathers Ruching
Embroidery (Sunday) Bows
Embroidery (Everyday) Tinsel, Sequins & Beads
—and, as there were many more of the little drawers, and Octavia and Rowena enjoyed the leisure necessary to accomplish their task, they worked on industriously and companionably for many a happy hour. From time to time Octavia heard her mother’s calming words, This too shall pass; but she could not stop herself from exclaiming inwardly, rather like a spoiled child, “Ah!—but must it!”
THIRTY-ONE
The Americans are great hero-worshippers, and always take their heroes from the criminal classes, the poetaster and immoralist Oscar Wilde observed, on the occasion of his visit to our too-hospitable shores, in 1882: Their heroines are more ambitiously chosen: criminals and goddesses combined.
By an unsettling fortuity, of the kind that affirms superstitious beliefs in the weak-minded, this foppish Irishman so poked about in our native diversions that, along with visits to Niagara Falls, Salt Lake City, Leadville (Colorado), St. Joseph (Missouri), Camden (New Jersey: where he met with a kindred spirit in the reprobate Walt Whitman), and elsewhere, he not only managed to see Malvinia Morloch and Orlando Vandenhoffen in As You Like It (“a tediously exhilarating transcription of the Bard at his light-hearted worst”), and the Boston medium “Deirdre of the Shadows” (“a shadowy venture in truth—amusing and shivery”), but to comment, in passing, with an air of distracted probity, that the “almost too beauteous” stage actress bore a peculiar family resemblanc
e, about the brow in particular, to the medium Deirdre!
But Wilde was far too busy, preening and boasting and gulling his silly American hosts, and offering himself to publicity, as a living exhibition of God knows what (in his tight plum-colored velvet coat, with flowered sleeves and a cambric ruff, and his infamous bottle-green otter fur overcoat), to make any further comment on either of the young American women, save to note, in a letter to a friend back in England, that “the new American religion being Spiritualism, the Americans might do worse than elect to sainthood the clever little charlatan ‘Deirdre of the Shadows,’ ” and to state, upon a number of occasions, until he forgot her name, that “quite the most dazzling thing in the New World, and near to Bernhardt’s equal—save in talent—is Malvinia Morloch.”
Beyond this, the meretricious young man made no comment upon our great nation or our magnificent geography worth recording; and much that demands censure.
QUITE THE MOST dazzling thing in the New World! How Malvinia would have gloated, to learn that so sophisticated, and so captious, an observer as Oscar Wilde had fallen under her spell: for the young woman was of that species of creature, female and male alike, who are capable of measuring their soul’s worth, only by the ostensible adulation of others.
That Malvinia’s history of beguilement was a lengthy one, will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her character and its defects. As a very small child, in the nursery, she continuously usurped her father-tutor’s complete attention, to the dismay of her sisters—Constance Philippa in particular, who, as the eldest, felt that she should be the brightest. (A sorry thing it is, the spectre of jealousy haunting a girl of seven or eight years of age!) Mr. Zinn was perhaps partly to blame, for, in his ambitious project to educate his children “in accordance with the sagacity and wisdom of the innate Soul,” he was but intermittently enthusiastic, and tho’ he could evoke immediate interest in virtually any subject—geometry, poetry, Egyptian history, drawing and painting, elocution—the very immediacy of the appeal, and the necessity for an expeditious response on the part of the pupil, greatly handicapped the slower sisters, and made bright, clever, mercurial little Malvinia the star scholar of the nursery. Mr. Zinn’s lengthy Socratic dialogues, seeking Truth through a meticulous examination of the child’s mind (or memory), greatly exhausted Constance Philippa, and Octavia, and the very young Samantha (who, even as a child of three or four, took her father’s domain of science and wisdom very seriously indeed); yet gave pretty Malvinia an opportunity to perform, as she supplied answers with no evident difficulty at all (as if—as we have speculated earlier—the precocious child were reading her father’s mind).