“I cannot think that they would not,” Samantha said.
“No,” said Constance Philippa at once, “I cannot think that either; for Grandfather, you know, would be most grieved.”
“He would be most furious,” Malvinia said idly, again fussing with her dotted tulle veil, the which she was obliged to wear, even in the late afternoon, that her flawless complexion might not be rudely touched by the sun. “Indeed, since his retirement from the Court, he is likely to be thrown into a fury at any time. How unhappy Father will be, if—!”
Samantha sighed in exasperation, for her orange yarn had become badly snarled; and it was always a source of uneasiness to her, that Malvinia, or any of her sisters, should take it upon themselves to discuss Mr. Zinn. She said: “Mother is quite certain that the election will be successful, for, I believe, Mr. Bayard thus informed her, tho’ the matter is of course confidential: and not to be chattered about, in every treetop and from out every window, as Pip would do.”
Whereupon, for no clear reason, unless, of course, to forestall some small contretemps, Constance Philippa gave her pink fancywork a vigorous shake, and said suddenly: “Miss Delphine Martineau behaved disgracefully this afternoon—she flirted with all the men—not excluding Octavia’s widower, Mr. Rumford—or my fiancé—or Grandfather himself—or that insufferable Mr. Ormond, who reminds me so forcibly of a barnyard hog! I hope you all took notice?”
“You are most unfair to Delphine!” Malvinia cried. (For, indeed, she and the vivacious Miss Martineau were very close friends.) “She does not flirt, any more than I do: but simply converses with any of the gentlemen, no matter their age, who approach her. Yes, Constance Philippa, you are unfair, and I cannot think it very generous of you,” she continued, warmly. “As if Delphine should give a snap of her fingers for—well, for any of the men you mention!—any more than I should—”
“You are insulting Constance Philippa, and me,” Octavia said gently. “I beg you to reconsider your rash words.”
“I will not hear Delphine slandered,” Malvinia said archly, “nor do I wish to reconsider anything I have said. If Constance Philippa speaks out of rank jealousy, or vile wicked envy, she should be more direct, and not hide behind cruel scatter’d shots!”
In reply, the flush-faced elder sister flung her crocheting down upon the floorboards of the gazebo; and for a long terrible moment no one spoke. (Indeed, it was well for the sisters, that no servant hovered near; and that the great house was a sufficient distance away, that none of their elders might chance to spy upon them.) To her credit, Constance Philippa held her tongue, as she had been instructed to do, in such flurried circumstances, when the blood pulses too strenuously through the veins, and the sturdy bone undergarments give every impression of growing yet tighter. The eldest Miss Zinn was, as the reader might infer, a strangely troubled young lady, and not at all grateful, it seems, for her engagement to the Baron, nor made so ecstatically happy at the prospect of being a wife to him, as she should have been. She breathed with enforced calm, and paused yet further, and finally spoke: “Yet there was no cause, Malvinia, to insult Octavia and me—to boast that you would not give a snap of your fingers for my fiancé, and Octavia’s suitor! Indeed, that is most cruel. For, after all, I have not yet heard that the banns have been announced for you and the dashing young Cheyney.”
Malvinia prepared a capricious retort; then, thinking better of it, began to hum rather loudly, a mannerism that could be counted on to annoy Constance Philippa; then, thinking better of that (for this lovely if impetuous child did have a warm heart), she turned suddenly to Octavia, and said: “But I did not mean to insult you! Of all things, dear Octavia, I did not mean that. Mr. Rumford is a fine, upstanding, and altogether considerable gentleman, of whom, I believe, Uncle Vaughan thinks highly; and Aunt Edwina has, I believe, never said a censorious word, in my hearing at least. And we know that Mother respects him.”
Octavia, smiling sadly, applied herself to the patchwork toy in her lap, and did not reply for some strained moments. She then said, without raising her tremulous brown gaze to Malvinia’s: “I fear, Malvinia, that all this chatter of Mr. Rumford—and Rumford Hall—and this and that—is, at best, premature. And may even be,” she said in a quavering voice, “finally quite irrelevant.”
“Octavia!” Malvinia breathed. “What are you saying?”
“Octavia—is it so?” Constance Philippa asked.
Bravely the young woman said: “I fear—I fear he may be, after all, interested in someone else: and Mother’s fancies, and, I am ashamed to say, my own, may be quite insubstantial.”
“Someone else!—ah, he does not dare!—not after things have so advanced, and he and Grandfather had, I thought, come to some sort of agreement with each other,” Malvinia said heatedly. “Of course, I do not know that any such conversation took place, but Mr. Rumford has behaved in so conspicuous a way. . . . Who might the other girl be?”
“Perhaps it is Delphine,” Constance Philippa said dryly. “No, more likely Felicity Broome, with her gossamer veil. Only fancy, she pretended to be chilled, and faint-headed, in this heat!”
“I do not know the identity of the other girl,” Octavia said. “It is naught but a rumor, out of Philadelphia. Indeed, it was Felicity who whispered it in my ear with, I thought, an expression of such gleeful cruelty, I felt my heart pierced; and wanted nothing more than to be carried back home, to my bedchamber, and my bed.”
“Octavia, I am certain you are mistaken,” Constance Philippa said, with some attempt at chastisement, “for, you must remember, Mr. Rumford is a deeply religious man, and the recent death of his wife—but some six or seven years ago, I believe?—must weigh very heavily upon him. It is common knowledge that he was ordained a Lutheran minister; his nature is hardly lightsome and fickle.”
“That is true, I suppose,” Octavia said slowly. “Mr. Rumford is uncommonly deep.”
“The fact that he remains in mourning for his wife,” Malvinia said, “can only be encouraging to you, for it suggests the gravity with which he contemplates the sacred bonds of matrimony! Indeed, Octavia, I should hardly be despondent, if I were you—and, in any case, it is quite impossible, to read a gentleman’s heart.”
“Impossible, indeed!” Octavia observed, with a small stoic laugh.
In such wise the sisters idly spoke, the while they did their fancywork and the languid afternoon waned; and no disturbance announced itself more stridently than a nearby raven, or a cicada, or an o’erimpetuous bullfrog down at the river.
It was then, in a stealthy motion, that Deirdre drew forth the locket she wore on a gold chain around her neck, to open it, and to stare intently at the faded daguerreotypes inside: an action that could not fail to offend her sisters. (For the daguerreotypes were of her natural parents, who had died some six years previous, in the dread typhoid epidemic of 1873. It was believed that Deirdre’s mother had given her the locket, shortly before her death, with instructions never to remove it, lest something unfortunate happen: so the stubborn child, in the very bosom of her new family, made a show of opening the locket upward of a dozen times daily, to gaze upon the old pictures with an expression of sickly yearning.)
In order to deflect attention from Deirdre’s rude gesture, Samantha said nervously: “Do you think there might be some difficulty? I mean, with Mother, and her private interview with Grandfather, in the Hall? For if Grandfather is not sympathetic this time—”
“Samantha,” Octavia scolded, “you are speaking out of turn: for we are hardly meant to know our mother’s private business.”
“We are not meant to know,” Samantha said, blushing, “but, in fact, we cannot escape having a very good idea of what it might be. And if Grandfather is adamant, and refuses to continue his support, what will poor Father do? You know, he is so very close to discovering the principle of the perpetual-motion machine!”
“Indeed, is he?” Malvinia asked, now peeking out from her veil at the sky, that she might judge whether
the sun’s rays were still injurious. “This is the device, I believe, which is to run forever?—and require no rewinding?”
“A device to run forever!” Constance Philippa murmured. “How very strange.”
“Strange,” said Samantha, “and miraculous. Indeed, there will be nothing like it under the sun: and our father will have invented it.”
“Invented it,” Octavia said firmly, “and patented it. For, this time, Mother will hear of nothing else.”
“A perpetual-motion machine is one that runs—perpetually?” Constance Philippa asked, knitting her brows. “I find that concept most remarkable. Indeed, I find it most distressing. Are you certain, Samantha, that you have understood Father correctly?”
“I work by his side in the laboratory, when he will allow me,” Samantha said boldly. “And, I assure you, it is precisely as I have said.”
Poor Constance Philippa held herself so stiffly, with so pained an expression, one might have wondered whether the strong admixture of chloride of lime and powdered salicylic acid, which, some hours ago, she had applied beneath her arms, for purposes of daintiness, had begun to sting; or whether, like the others, she felt the continued strain of not looking at her youngest sister. (Who, whilst the others conversed, held herself in distinct opposition, being seated somewhat to the side, and brooding, still, to no useful purpose, over the old locket.)
“Father is so very close to grasping it! So very close to consummation,” Samantha said warmly. “What a pity it would be, and what a tragedy, for our nation, if he should not be allowed to continue; and for mere financial reasons.”
“Yet Grandfather, I have been told, is greatly displeased,” Malvinia said slowly, “with what he calls Father’s perversity: a word that rather puzzles me, since it is so rarely used.”
“And Great-Aunt Edwina is said to be skeptical,” Constance Philippa said.
Octavia gave her patchwork toy a vigorous shake, and said: “It is wrong of you, Malvinia, and Constance Philippa, to discuss our elders like that, out of their presence. It makes me distinctly uneasy.”
“You are right, of course,” Malvinia said, “and yet, how I wish we Zinns were not poor! That is our problem, at bottom; there is the origin of all our unhappiness. Four dowries—I mean five— Four grown girls—that is, five: or do I truly mean four, since our beloved Constance Philippa is, after all, betrothed to her Baron? Alas, it is all so troublesome!”
Doubtless there is some error, in ascribing to past events, certain logical interpretations that come to mind only after time’s ineluctable passage; nevertheless, it may have been this rash speech of Malvinia’s that, entering the heart of the youngest of the Zinn sisters like a blade, did some mischief there, with the immediate consequence that Deirdre raised a startl’d and incautious gaze to Malvinia’s blithe countenance; and a near-inaudible gasp was heard, tho’ issuing from which of the sisters, I cannot say.
Whereupon poor Octavia, all ablush, murmured: “Malvinia! You forget yourself.”
Yet Malvinia continued, briefly meeting Deirdre’s childlike gray gaze (in which simple hurt had not yet begun to be o’ercome by reproach): “Yes, I have thought long upon the subject, and have come to the conclusion that the origin of our unhappiness—for we are unhappy, tho’ we are Zinns!—lies in our impoverishment. For, only consider,” the bold young lady said, lowering her voice, and now leaning toward those three sisters whom, it is to be supposed, she considered her true sisters, “only consider, how, almost alone in Bloodsmoor, amidst so many excellent families, we are forced to a fortnightly wash!—with the shameful result, that all the households know the exact limits of the Zinns’ changes of clothing.”
Constance Philippa sighed loudly, and fanned her warm face with her fancywork, having mislaid, or forgotten, her fan, and said: “Malvinia, I cannot tolerate this subject any further, from you: and you know that Mother has forbidden it.”
Octavia’s plump cheeks now resembled lovely cream-hued peonies, upon whose petals a scarlet blush had just begun to bloom, for this warm-hearted young lady was most distressed, both that the outlaw topic was introduced, and that Deirdre had been injured—albeit quite innocently, and, as it were, only in passing. Thus she said in a flurried voice: “It is an unspeakable subject, to bring up at this time, and in this wondrous place, after the Kiddemasters’ great generosity to us!—a magnificent tea in honor of Constance Philippa, and, too, in honor of Father, that his candidacy to the Society is being considered so seriously. Nay, it is an impossible subject: we will not hear of it!”
“The Gilpins and the Martineaus and the Ormonds, and many another household, do their linen each quarter-year,” Malvinia said boldly, “and it is hardly a secret, that the Broomes, tho’ once poor, have, as a consequence of the railroads, I believe, enough wealth, and enough good linen, to do but a half-year wash: or so it is whisper’d. And the Whittons, and the Millers, and the house of Du Pont de Nemours, and—”
“Hush, Malvinia!” Octavia said. Her moist startl’d eyes were turned upward to the great house, not one hundred yards away; and then to poor Deirdre, who continued to sit, stiffened, and blankly staring, at the floorboards of the gazebo, her crochet hook now stilled in her hands. “Hush, hush, we will not hear of it, how you would injure Father if he knew, and how you injure us, with your cruel utterances! Nay, hush, we will not hear!”
“Four Zinn sisters, and, indeed, the talk of the Valley, as ’twas: and then five,” Malvinia said, most impulsively, “which is of course a credit to Mother and Father, and not to be questioned, or ridiculed. Nay, I will not hush, I will speak, there is no stranger near, not anyone who might pretend to be surprised, by anything that is said. Indeed—”
Constance Philippa, now tugging with unconscious force, and vexation, at the fashionably tight sleeves of her piqué dress, interrupted forcibly to say: “You are correct, Malvinia; and yet you are improper. And so—do as Octavia and I, your elder sisters, say, and pray be still.”
There then ensured some moments of ill-natured silence, during which, naught was to be heard, save the distant lowing of a cow; and the melodic queries of the bright-feather’d creatures in the stately elms nearby. Octavia broke the quiet with nervous chatter, the which was greeted with relief, tho’, perhaps, scant attention: “The blackberry tea as well—I thought quite successful—and the fresh honey, from Uncle Rhinelander’s hives—and—and—I must say, Constance Philippa, I do not truly think Delphine Martineau is to be censored for her gaiety and high spirits for she is so winsome, and quite pure of heart, I am sure. And the gentlemen from Boston—Professor Lyndon in particular—and Father’s eloquence—and the great promise of the perpetual-motion machine . . . Perhaps, Samantha, we might beg of you, a helpful description of that amazing device?”
“Nay, I will make no serious attempt, for you are all distracted, and Mother will shortly be summoning us. The machine upon which Father has been working since last spring is, properly speaking, the new machine, for he felt of a sudden obliged to scrap virtually everything he had done beforehand—a heartrending decision, yet, I must believe, a necessary one. Alas, poor Father!” Samantha said fiercely; “how very hard he labors, and yet the ignorant world presumes to judge him!” She paused for a moment to calm herself, and then continued: “The new machine is designed with a copper pendulum involving not the swinging motion, with which you are familiar in household clocks, but a part-rotation, clockwise 180 degrees precisely, and then counterclockwise, 180 degrees precisely. So far as I comprehend the source of energy, it derives from the coordination of magnetic fields, gravitational tides (exerted by both the sun and the moon simultaneously), and odylic force; and the great difficulty at present is, how to release, yet inhibit, the energy thus summoned, that it will not rush into the mechanism with such force that the mechanism is destroyed—nor will it flow haplessly into the air. To this end, Father has been experimenting with magnets of various dimensions, and strips of lead, and putty, and silk threads, that the magnetic fie
ld may be more closely controlled. We are greatly anxious,” the young lady said, in an abruptly lowered voice, and with a covert gaze around her, “that no spy from Menlo Park discover this latest experimentation: for you know that it would destroy Father utterly, not only the theft of another of his discoveries, but the theft of this, his greatest work—nay, when it is brought to fruition, it will be one of the greatest works of all time. Thus, if Father spoke at times circumspectly with the Boston professors, it was with the sad knowledge weighing upon his heart, that, for all their evident sincerity, and scientific objectivity, they might be spies in Mr. Edison’s employ—or innocent dupes in his web. Alas, who can know!” Samantha concluded, with so profound a sigh, it might have issued from a woman twice her age.
Malvinia then inquired, in a somewhat subdued voice, as if she felt a modicum of regret for her rude words: “Yet work is progressing, I assume? And when does Father predict the mechanism will be perfected?”
“Father does not predict such things,” Samantha said, crinkling her brow in startl’d disapprobation, at her sister’s ignorance. “You know him very poorly, if you imagine his thoughts stray onto such notions!”
“Not in time for Constance Philippa’s wedding?” Octavia inquired, with wistful regret. “Nay, I suppose not: it is ignorant of me, to ask.”
“Not in time for Constance Philippa’s wedding!” Malvinia exclaimed, in such alarm, she allowed her sunshade to fall to the floor. “Why, that cannot be possible, surely that cannot be possible, for the wedding is set for over a twelve-month from now! Surely, Samantha, you do not know everything, and may be mistaken in this issue?”
“Indeed, I may well be mistaken,” Samantha said, with unlook’d-for humility, “yet, pray do not make these inquiries of anyone else: not of Mother, and, of course, not of Father.”