I am in possession of very few details, surrounding the tragic death of the old Judge, save that, as a consequence of his repeated experiments with the recording machine, the household staff had grown somewhat benumbed, as to his raised voice, shouts, and wild climbing laughter, whereby he signaled contempt to his enemies; and his sister Edwina, in somewhat depressed spirits herself, as a consequence of age, and of the extraordinary popular success of a rival etiquette expert, so avoided that part of the house in which his voice sounded, that she scarce saw her brother save at formal meals—at that time reduced, by mutual consent, to but one daily repast, at two o’clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Zinn, ever a loyal and dutiful daughter, thought it wisest, to limit her visits to her father, to but once a day, after teatime had commenced: and yet, alas!—many were the afternoons, when Grandfather Kiddemaster’s manservant informed her, that her father was “so absorbed in his patriotic task, he must beg to be excus’d.” That J.Q.Z., energetically absorbed in his labor, delayed from day to day, and from week to week, his visits to Kiddemaster Hall, must have gone unremarked by Grandfather Kiddemaster, who never spoke of his son-in-law save in the vaguest of terms, and even gave evidence, from time to time, of confusing him with Mr. Lucius Rumford! (Nor did he remember him, I am saddened to say, in his will—but with the casual observation that, his daughter Prudence’s household being so lavishly in debt to him, a mere erasing of that debt, upon the occasion of Godfrey Kiddemaster’s death, should constitute a substantial inheritance.)
All of the household being, then, so accustomed to Grandfather Kiddemaster’s noises, behind the locked door of his study, it was some hours before the most sharp-eared of the servants took note that the Judge’s words, and the exact modulation of his voice, appeared to be repeating themselves: whereupon, the door forc’d, it was far too late, the terrified witness being greeted with the sorry sight of which I have spoken, yet much confus’d, to hear that noble voice ringing out nonetheless!
So extreme were Judge Kiddemaster’s terms of abuse, in these recorded messages (even, I am sorry to say, in those messages intended for certain of his family members), the milder amongst them being such expletives as “blackguard,” and “villain,” and “blockhead,” and “lackwit,” and “donkey,” and “d——’d fool,” and “d——’d a——e,” and “h——t,” and “m——b,” I cannot see the exercise as fructifying, to record them here; and would worry that, granted even the genuine admiration and interest of historians of this period, in the great Kiddemaster heritage, some misinterpretation of the Judge’s sensibilities, and the wide range of his intellectual capabilities, might result. Indeed, I concur with Great-Aunt Edwina’s wisdom, not only in commanding that all of the record discs (estimated at above two hundred) be destroyed immediately, but in personally presiding over that action, and even volunteering some aid, in thrusting the offending “records” into the flames, and dealing with them soundly, with a poker.
“The old ruffian,” Edwina declared, red of cheek, and panting, to her astonished niece Prudence, “cannot even be excused on the grounds of drunkenness, or common senility: I smell nothing other than The Beast, emerging in him, who had imagin’d himself immune!”
THIS DREADFUL NEWS was borne upon that very day to Rumford Hall, by Mrs. Zinn herself, who, strengthened by ministrations of smelling salts, ether and water, and one or two other remedies, prescribed by Dr. Moffet, knew it her mother’s duty, to inform Octavia of her grandfather’s sudden death: and of the surprising revelation Great-Aunt Edwina and Prudence had chanc’d upon, in the general confusion of papers on the old man’s death, as to the directing of the Kiddemaster fortune, in all but some trifling instances, to a most surprising party: Miss Edwina Kiddemaster herself!
“I cannot comprehend the meaning behind this queer—indeed, bizarre—outburst of generosity,” the elderly woman averred, in a stately voice, grown tremulous by the several shocks to her delicate constitution, “and would give half my fortune, and half his, to learn what caprices had leapt about in his inflam’d brain, in these late weeks. A loving brother’s natural concern for his maiden sister’s well-being, surely underlies the spirit of the gesture; and yet!—I am hardly maiden in years, or in vulnerability; and I daresay my own fortune quite approaches his—my sex notwithstanding, and the lifelong feebleness of my health.”
“Dear Aunt,” Mrs. Zinn declared, her stolid countenance gone pale, and her daughter’s eyes brimming with tears of grief, “dear Aunt, there is no one more deserving than you, who bear the great Kiddemaster name, regardless of age, station, personal accomplishment, or personal fortune: and I daresay it is this Father sought to honor, as well as expressing, in the way he knew best, his brotherly affection for you.”
Miss Edwina Kiddemaster surely heard these words, as she was but negligibly deaf, for a woman of her advanced years; yet she chose not to respond to them explicitly, but to murmur, with a perplex’d smile: “And it was so freely thought that Little Godfrey would inherit!—that angel-imp having so captivated the old man’s heart, it was believed, in recent years!”
THUS IT WAS, Mrs. Zinn ordered her carriage, and was driven to Rumford Hall posthaste, that she might tell Octavia of Grandfather Kiddemaster’s death, and prepare her for the news, necessarily tentative (the actual will being locked away), of the curious inheritance, which had so lavishly rewarded that very sister whom the old man had affected to dislike: and which had slighted (ah, so cruelly!) both the Zinn and the Rumford households, where simple gratitude would have much more zestfully blossomed, as finances were needed. (For tho’ J.Q.Z. had enjoyed a conspicuous success with the inauguration, in 1893, of his “electric chair”—the chair, rather than the bed, being Mrs. Zinn’s contribution, for she thought it “unsightly, that a felon would die in a posture of repose”—and tho’ Congress had increased the amount of his annual honorarium, that he might continue his research, it was still the case, I am sorry to say, that that visionary gentleman’s material expenses were extraordinarily high: and Mrs. Zinn suffered much silent anxiety, over the maintenance of her household, in an era of inflated prices, and servants’ venal requests for higher wages.)
Mrs. Zinn found Mr. Rumford not at home, a fact her grievèd heart must be excus’d, for deeming fortuitous (for, indeed, Mr. Rumford was to show considerable perplexity, and displeasure, over the surprise of Judge Kiddemaster’s will): and so mournful was her countenance, and so immediate the tragic communication in her eyes, that poor Octavia, but glimpsing her mother at some distance, divined at once the import of her message!—and hurried to her, to be embraced in her strong maternal arms, and to embrace in turn, offering such daughterly comfort, and commiseration, as the elder woman could not fail to find gratifying.
Octavia was, on this mild spring day, seated on the west terrace of Rumford Hall, in the company of the frolicksome Little Godfrey, and a tall, somewhat stout, but altogether pleasant-faced gentleman, possessed of burnished-red hair, and a forthright manner, who was presented to Mrs. Zinn as “Mr. McInnes”—a United States Congressman from the Chadsworth district, and an attorney, and “something of an investor” in mining, railroads, and munitions manufacturing: this gentleman being, I am startl’d, and pleased, to note, none other than Sean McInnes, the late coachman’s son!—involved now, in what circumstance I do not know, in Mr. Rumford’s financial speculations, or in the interests of one or another of Mr. Rumford’s Philadelphia creditors; and much alter’d from that inconsequential Irish youth, of whom I had scant occasion to speak, some time ago. But such was Mrs. Zinn’s tearful grief, and so violent Octavia’s immediate response, that it is doubtful Mrs. Zinn even heard the name McInnes clearly, let alone grasped the quaint connection, between Sean the coachman’s son, and this fully mature, and clearly affluent, gentleman who stood before her. And, Mr. McInnes being sensitive to the extremities of the moment, he at once summoned the servants, that they might be of aid to their mistress; and bowed; and took his leave: correctly divining
that mother and daughter should wish to be alone, at this poignant, and heartrending, moment.
“Break, heart!—I pray you, break! break!” Octavia wept, in a convulsion of granddaughterly sobbing, caught fast in Mrs. Zinn’s embrace; “for it is too pitiless, it is too cruel, to suffer the loss of Grandfather so suddenly!—with no word of farewell, no final kiss!—indeed, no warning at all!”
“Well may you weep, my dear daughter,” Mrs. Zinn grimly, yet withal tearfully, declared, “yet, I do not doubt, Our Saviour will guide us, as He has not failed to, in the past: if we but pray with sufficient zeal, and offer the vanities of our hopes, as well as our heartstruck grief, to Him, and do not succumb to the sin of Despair!”
Thus mother and daughter commiserated, and comforted each other; and it would wrench the most callous’d heart, from out its breast, to see how that affrighted cherub Little Godfrey, tho’ but five years of age, sought to placate this demonstration of grief, by leaping about, and circling the sobbing women, and clutching and pawing at them, that they might acknowledge him: and see, in his own words, that “Little Godfrey is not injured, but quite well!—indeed, very, very happy—and healthy—and quite hungry for more apricot cake!”—for why, then, should they weep?
SIXTY-SIX
Wise indeed was the hand, that writ Troubles do not singly come!—for it was to be on Palm Sunday eve, in April of 1897, not long after the death of Grandfather Kiddemaster, that poor Octavia was plunged yet more deeply into mourning: this unlook’d-to occasion being, I am very griev’d to report, the loss of her devoted spouse.
Unhappy Lucius Rumford! Pluck’d before his time! Yet, withal, he left a worthy heir for his lands and fortune, in the child Little Godfrey, whom, I am sure, he loved with a deep paternal pride, no matter that, his temperament shrinking from the vanities of display, of outward affection, he exhibited a countenance somewhat stern and forbidding; and chose to leave the rearing of his son to Mrs. Rumford, and a succession of governesses. It is true that Mr. Rumford was considerably displeased with the eccentric formulation of the Judge’s will, the which stimulated him to observe, with acrid brevity, to his timorous spouse: “It is hardly the first time, Madame, that your distinguished family has prov’d disappointing to the world”—a statement not elaborated upon, and rich in ambiguity. It is true too that this displeasure o’erspilled, in a manner of speaking, onto the cherubic little boy himself, with the saddening consequence that Mr. Rumford’s natural fatherly tendencies were suppressed, in Little Godfrey’s presence: and that, on the matter of Mrs. Rumford’s having again conceived, he had succumbed once or twice to a cold fury, uttering such imprecations as “shameless,” and “harlot,” and “Whore of Babylon”—the which poor Octavia was able to accept, with Christian humility, and all the more readiness, in that her pure—indeed, maidenly—mind scarce grasped the meaning of such words.
Know, O Reader, all these observations are true: yet it would be a most erroneous judgment, to see Mr. Lucius Rumford as anything less than an upstanding Christian husband, possessing qualities of such modesty, sanctity, and truthfulness, as to make him a model for all of the neighborhood, as well as for his wife and heir: and, indeed, so lavishly mourned by his wife, she lay abed senseless for a fortnight, after the unspeakable event, and, one rain-toss’d night, rang feebly for her nurse, that a writing board might be given her, and a sheet of stiff paper, and a quill pen and ink, in order that she might transcribe an elegy in his honor: our dear Octavia, who never before writ a line of verse, nor aspired to such heights!
Yet this remarkable poem flowed, with no discernible hesitation, from the widow’s pen, which moved with a wondrous feverish haste, in great contrast to the beatific serenity of her countenance, and the brimming brown warmth of her lovely eyes!—
When evening dews are falling fast,
When stars are shining clear,
We’ll think of hours so sweet tho’ past,
When thou wert with us here.
And thou too, wilt thou hover near,
If thus to thee ’tis given,
To meet with those on earth so dear,
While thou art blest in Heaven?
—after which, the graceful pen slipp’d from the grieving woman’s hand, and ink was blackly splattered across the paper: and never again, in all her lengthy and bountiful life, would Octavia be so stirred by inspiration—or, it may be, by inconsolable loss—as to write another poetical line!
THE ACTUAL CIRCUMSTANCES pertaining to Mr. Rumford’s demise are somewhat clouded; and even the zealous Dr. Moffet was not able to determine, to his professional satisfaction, the exact cause of death—save the obvious factor of heart failure, as a consequence of an o’erexertion of some kind; and choking, or suffocation, which appeared to accompany the former. (The distraught widow, invalided with shock and grief, was surely not to be interrogated: the more so in that her condition was deemed precarious, and a miscarriage gravely feared: and the sagacious Dr. Moffet had cause to be apprehensive of a recurrence of that brain fever, which the unhappy woman had suffered, immediately following the death of Baby Sarah.)
As it was, I hope I am not o’erleaping my story, by confiding in the reader, that Octavia was not allowed to rise from her sickbed, despite her vehement wish that she be allowed to do so, for she greatly worried about Little Godfrey, and the household, it being prescribed by her physician, and vigorously affirmed by Mrs. Zinn, that she remain safely abed until the birth of her baby, some months thither—a most wise, and prudent, decision, in that an infant son of a somewhat undersized development, was born to her in early September, several weeks before he was due. (This child was to be baptized Lucius Quincy—and I hope I do not offend, by leaping yet further into my story, to remark that the greatly priz’d angel, tho’ sickly in infanthood, would acquire strength, and grow, and thrive, and be a heartfelt blessing to his mother, in her hallowèd twilight years: and, yes, to his stepfather as well! But such a culmination of the present agoniz’d grief, lies so far in the future—indeed, in the next century, into which I shall not venture—that it is to no helpful purpose, to comment upon it here.)
A beneficence we must deem it, that Mr. Rumford should have expir’d, if God had so decreed, that his time had come, in his bed; and in the embrace of blissful wedlock: not upon the drear streets of Philadelphia, where naught but strangers might have hurried to his stricken side; not upon the lonely road, or in foul weather—the wind, and the hail, and the snowstorms of that most bleak of seasons, winter! Nay, but in his faithful wife’s arms, where, coupled in that sacred unitary act, of which, in ignorance, I am hardly worthy to speak, he might have found some solace, and some measure of boundless love, as to compensate for the sudden termination of his life on earth!
Tho’ the circumstances of Mr. Rumford’s death are, as I have noted, somewhat obscure, it would seem that, in the several months preceding it, he had seen fit to introduce, in his conjugal relations with his spouse, an element of forcible exertion: the which may have been for purposes of penitence (so that, even as the chaste gentleman succumbed to an involuntary spasmodic bliss, of a brute animal quality, he chastis’d himself, in homage to Our Saviour’s sacrifice), or for purposes of discipline (it being, at times, lamentably the case, that the obedient Octavia, for all her intention, could not prevent herself from a display of struggle, and even of muffled protest, particularly if severe discomfort, or outright pain, were endur’d).
In any case, Mr. Rumford’s principles being unknown, his practice was such that, in addition to the hood, and the corset, and the petticoats, and the numerous pretty accoutrements I have mentioned, he began to employ a noose of some lightsome—indeed, flimsy—fabric: silk, it may have been; or satin; or mere cotton. This device being placed over Octavia’s head, over the hood, and secured about her neck, it perhaps helped to keep the protective covering in place, during the strenuous unitary act, so that the chaste wife’s eyes were the more shielded, from any startling or untoward sight, of a kind that must
be occasional, I suspect, in the marital bed, no matter the purity of the husband and wife, and the Christian nature of their intentions. That Octavia silently acquiesced to this strategy is to her credit, for she knew herself resented, and even, at times, despised, both for the frequency with which she conceived (“a bitch in heat might display more reluctance,” were Mr. Rumford’s words), and for her grandfather’s insulting negligence.
Thus Mrs. Rumford’s abash’d docility, in the light of her husband’s natural displeasure; nor did the young woman fail to observe the predicament of the once-headstrong Delphine Martineau, who, having protested her husband’s drinking, gambling, and “consorting with low personages,” was said now to be confined to a single chamber of her husband’s ancestral house, and under a physician’s close ministration, that her hysteria, and her imagin’d fancies, should not have a deleterious effect upon her young children, or besmirch the noble name of Ormond, her husband’s family. And there was the example, too, of Cousin Rowena Kale, sent back penniless to her father’s house, as a consequence of some disagreement, involving the treatment, or mistreatment, of her children: the unhappy woman, having incurred the displeasure of her lawfully wed husband, hardly failing, now, to incur an equivalent displeasure, on the part of her father, all the more that her dowry was “squander’d,” and “thrown down a rat hole,” with nothing to show for it. And, I am sorry to say, there were other whisper’d tales, which shall have no place in this narrative, partaking, as all such prattle does, of shallow gossip: and casting an unpleasant shadow upon that holy institution, marriage, in which God binds man and wife as one flesh, and one spirit.