A Bloodsmoor Romance (27 page)

And so Mr. Zinn began again his recitation of that excellent work, in as hearty a voice as if no interruption had occurred.

 

“SOMETIMES, WHEN I
hear poetry read, and particularly when I read it myself,” Malvinia said, “I have such a sensation of—of—I know not what!—a sensation of
knowing,
for a brief instant, not simply that I may inhabit other lives, and realize things quite foreign to Bloodsmoor, but that I have already done so,
am
doing so, in another world altogether! I hope,” the boldly deferential young lady said, fixing a wide stare upon the countenance of her elder sister, “I do not present myself in too wild a light.”

Constance Philippa did not immediately reply. She continued with her crocheting, which, in recent months, occupied her more and more, in those nervous blank periods when she was neither reading nor visiting, and in which her clumsy fingers had grown surprisingly skillful.

“It is a rare concern of yours, dear sister,” she said dryly, “to
hope
for anything so modest.”

Rebuffed, Malvinia touched a pretty white hand to her slender bosom, and said, in a somewhat aggrieved voice: “I had meant to speak seriously for once, dear Constance Philippa. Particularly since you will be leaving us before long—and when we visit, I shall be addressing a
Baroness.
”

“Shall you?” Constance Philippa inquired, in so bemused a tone, one might have thought her offering a problematical statement rather than a question.

Malvinia gamely returned to her subject, and spoke for some minutes in the same defiantly serious manner, which was, of course, not characteristic of her, even in the days of her innocent girlhood. (It was hardly a household secret at this time—in the late spring and early summer of 1880—that Constance Philippa and her beautiful sister Malvinia frequently had disagreements; and that the elder sister, once so impervious to domestic squabbles, was as prone to bursting into tears as Malvinia, or even Octavia. But not even the least sympathetic servants in either of the houses liked to whisper that the elder, albeit safely engaged, was jealous of the younger or, rather, of her fiancé's attentiveness, as it was diverted from herself and onto the younger: for of all failings, surely jealousy is the most ignoble; and Bloodsmoor confidently expected better of its most prominent inhabitants.)

“So very often,” Malvinia continued, undiscouraged by her sister's silence, “when I am reading a book—or when I am watching a play—Shakespeare above all else, of course—and there is Orlando Vandenhoffen in
Under the Gaslight
—and, well—I speak too incoherently, I fear—but my wonder is this: Do others share this sensation of yearning, and yet of
doubleness?
—this sensation of being both
spectator
and
participant?
Do others share this—this—” She paused, but Constance Philippa, frowning at the work in her lap, did not glance up to encourage her. “Ah!—it is impossible to say what I mean. Sometimes I halfway think that the only person who might have understood me was Deirdre; and she is vanished forever.”

Still without glancing up, her eyes somewhat hooded, Constance Philippa murmured lowly: “Yes, I have often thought that too—I mean of Deirdre; and of myself.”

“Indeed!” Malvinia exclaimed.

For some time, then, the sisters worked, in uneasy and strained silence. Malvinia then roused herself, and, brightly nervous, sought to distract them both, by idle chatter on divers subjects: the resumed courtship of Octavia, by Mr. Lucius Rumford, whilst—as if all of Bloodsmoor did not know—poor Octavia pined away for the coachman's strapping son Sean (who had, it seemed, startl'd everyone by so forthrightly leaving Bloodsmoor, “to strike out on his own” elsewhere); and the lavish wedding of Delphine Martineau to one of the Ormond heirs, scheduled for Saturday next—a social event from which Constance Philippa planned to absent herself with the excuse of a prior commitment; and the Baron, the formidable Baron!—about whom so many rumors circulated, it must be the case, that very few could be true. (“It is most interesting,” Malvinia proffered, “to hear that Great-Uncle Vaughan so warmly welcomes him, at Highlands Manor; and allows him to board his stallion there, and his falcon. I have heard, too, that the old Dutch farmhouse—you know, that charming stone cottage—is given over to the Baron's use, when he wishes it. Will it not make a charming honeymoon retreat, Constance Philippa? Ah, I envy you! Your bridegroom will take you hunting on the back of his prancing steed; and, alone of the Zinn girls, you will have the pleasure of a falcon's weight, on your arm. It is all so very romantic!”)

Constance Philippa stiffened at these lightsome words, in which a subtle trace of mockery sounded; yet she restrained herself from answering sharply, and chose instead to pursue the earlier subject of their conversation. In a brooding voice she said: “That doubleness of which you speak, Malvinia—that
yearning,
and that
doubleness
—I do believe it is familiar, tho' I scarcely know how to articulate my meaning. There have been certain books, over the years, perus'd in secret, one of them being that wondrously strange, drunken, elated poem,
Leaves of Grass,
by a poet of whom no one has heard—nay, do not frown, Malvinia: I shall not press it upon you! And many another, that seem less to
inspire
wayward dreams, than to
awaken
them. Whilst daydreaming over them, I feel so strong a conviction of another world, and of another Constance Philippa, that I scarce know where I am, or who I am! It is very, very strange. I feel, Malvinia, that there is a hint here, a wisp, a vapor, of a hint, of
the personage God meant me to be.
”

Malvinia was staring at her, uncomprehending.
“The personage God meant you to be!”
she echoed lowly. “Why, Constance Philippa, I cannot understand
that:
put in such terms, it sounds very much like blasphemy.”

“Do not be absurd, pray,” Constance Philippa said curtly. “Blasphemy, indeed!”

“It is a most eccentric expression,” Malvinia said. “
Most
unseemly.”

“I should, I suppose, confide in the Baron, on such matters,” Constance Philippa said slowly, “but I know that I never shall.”

“Nay, you must never,” Malvinia said, with some reproach. “He would find it distressing—he would find it a trifle vulgar.” She stared, and half smiled, and stroked her handsome plaited hair, and said again: “It
is
a most eccentric expression:
The personage God meant you to be.
”

“We will change the subject, dear Malvinia,” Constance Philippa said dryly, “since I see it offends you. Since any subject not your own offends you.”

“
My
sense is one of almost painful yearning, and a curious sort of doubleness,” Malvinia mused, “as if I were both myself and another person—in a novel, on the stage—Juliet, for instance—ah, Juliet!—I should
be
her so completely!—and then Cleopatra—and Ophelia—and, do you know, I believe I shall begin voice lessons—Cousin Basil has been kind enough to introduce me to some very interesting people in the city—Mr. Danby, who owns the Varieties, for one—and Carla Rowbotham the soprano—and—and others—of whom, perhaps, Mother might not approve; or the great Kidde­master clan; but they are marvelous people nonetheless. And when this ever­lasting wedding is over, then I shall, perhaps, move into the city to live, if satisfactory arrangements can be made.”

Constance Philippa stared coldly at her. “ ‘When this everlasting wedding is over'? You are alluding, my dear Malvinia, to my life.”

Malvinia continued sewing for some seconds, unmoved. Then her smile deepened; her blue eyes shone bluely; she said, with an intonation quite brazen, as if she were already on the stage: “My dear Constance Philippa, I am alluding to my own.”

 

“THE PERSONAGE GOD
meant her to be!”
Octavia echoed, when she heard. “But—how is that possible, Malvinia? What could she have meant? The person one
is,
is necessarily the person God
intended;
for how, pray, could it be otherwise? My head spins at the thought. . . . We are meant to be as we are; if we were not, why—God would direct us elsewhere. His plan surely includes us all, for how could it
not?
Constance Philippa knows very well that we are meant to marry, and—” (and here the flustered young lady hesitated) “—and provide grandchildren for our parents—and, if it is at all possible, live close by in Bloodsmoor; she
knows
these things as well as any of us.”

With a gay little laugh Malvinia leaned forward to kiss her sister on the cheek. “Of course! How self-evident! She knows these things
quite
as well as any of us!”

 

THE DRESSMAKER'S DUMMY
that was
her
began to exert a curious fascination upon Constance Philippa.

When Madame Blanchet and the young French seamstress who was her assistant were not at the Octagonal House, Constance Philippa frequently entered the sewing room, a book in hand, eager to find solitude. The household supposed that she was admiring her wedding dress, and the beautiful green velvet jacket with the puffed sleeves and linen cuffs that would be part of her new suit, and a walking dress in dove-gray muslin decorated with
blonde
lace; the household supposed that, like any young engaged lady, she was thinking of—nay, dreaming of, and who would rebuke her?—her bridegroom-to-be. Alas, it was not so. Constance Philippa sometimes thought of the Baron as she lay in bed, unable to sleep; or, very early in the morning, when she woke prematurely, from troubled dreams; but at such times her thinking had rather more to do with fragments of vision and peculiar recollections of a perverse nature: the almost imperceptible stain at the corner of the Baron's mouth, which she had happened to notice quite by accident while dancing with him at the Woodruffs' midsummer ball; the way in which he slapped down cards, at whist, the whites of his eyes sometimes showing above the iris; the coldness of his touch (which was communicated even through the fabric of his white gloves), the warm meatiness of his breath (which wafted to her at odd times, even while they strolled out-of-doors), the Teutonic harshness of his words, even his softer words—“My dear Constance Philippa,” “My esteemed Constance Philippa,” “My bride-to-be, Miss Constance Philippa Zinn” (tho' she did not at all mind his accent; she had always admired his accent, when he was barking commands to his handsome stallion Lucifer or his falcon Adonis or the cringing young Negro who was his stable boy).

And yet Constance Philippa did not
think
of her fiancé with any continuity, nor did she
dream
of him, as giddy young girls are wont to daydream of their loves. Instead, her brain was diverted by all sorts of bizarre and half-formed notions, a cacophony of phrases taken from the writings of Eliza Leslie North, Mary Manderly Ogden, Dr. Elias Riddle, Alice C. Dodds, Dr. Napheys, and her own great-aunt Edwina Kidde­master; and she spent an inordinate amount of time in the sewing room, where it was not the exquisite China silk wedding dress with its many layered skirts that drew her attention, nor even the handsome green suit, but the dressmaker's dummy itself: headless, armless, ending abruptly at the hips: the dummy that was
her.

While the spacious sewing room in Kidde­master Hall contained numerous dummies, many belonging, so to speak, to ladies no longer living, the sewing room in the Octagonal House contained only six, and was of far more modest and attractive proportions, being furnished by “cottage” tables and chairs made by Mr. Zinn himself, and painted the cheerful hues of lilac, yellow, and pale orange. The dummy of the most generous proportions belonged, of course, to Mrs. Zinn, tho' its waist was still fairly narrow; next in size was Octavia's; and then Constance Philippa's (this figure being very nearly repellent, to the discerning eye, for its unnatural
breadth
of shoulder, and the
elongation
of the torso); and then Malvinia's, with her lissome waist; and then the very petite figures of Samantha, and Deirdre, who were nearly of a size, tho' Deirdre was perhaps two or three inches taller than Samantha. (I hold it to be a measure of the Zinns' stalwart optimism, as well as their forgiving nature, that Deirdre's dressmaker's dummy had not been removed from the sewing room—as if, one day, it might again be employed.)

Constance Philippa gave herself up to a most unwholesome brooding, biting at her fingernail, and observing her dummy from all sides. She even removed the comely green jacket as if, with no impulse of modesty, she meant to examine the torso
naked!

This manikin was hers, and, in a sense, was
her:
for its proportions were considered to be her own, when firmly corseted. And yet, with its agreeably slender waist (some twenty inches, when most recently calculated), and its ample bosom (this being a consequence of strategic padding, in compliance with Mrs. Zinn's instructions), it struck the o'erly censorious young lady as not her at all, but a
lie.

“I
am,
” Constance Philippa softly whispered, touching the dummy's brittle shoulder, “and
am not.
”

Thus she spent upward of twenty minutes, staring, and contemplating she knew not what, and surrendering herself—ah, how unwisely!—to enfeebling thoughts. “I am here represented, as, it seems, my outward form arrests the eye of the beholder,” she murmured, with idle industry scratching at a strip of the varnished paper, that had come slightly loose, on the shoulder, “yet
I,
who stand
here,
have naught to do with
this!
—and find it a most maddening puzzle.”