A Bloodsmoor Romance (45 page)

Fortunate it was, indeed, that Mrs. Zinn knew naught of this development, but continued in her fond delusion that Malvinia favored Cheyney; and would, one day soon, consent to be his bride.

 

OVER THE YEARS,
Malvinia had acquired some notoriety, within her family, for always demanding special favors: pouting, and weeping, and cajoling, and begging, and simpering, and persisting, till she had her way. Consequently, her parents were pressed into granting her divers concessions: further lessons on the piano (for it greatly vexed her, that Deirdre could play with such versatility); acting and elocution lessons, at the Philadelphia Girls' Academy (for such lessons, she claimed, would aid her immeasurably at balls, and at other difficult social occasions); French lessons (for someday, surely, she would visit France—and how awkward, to be unable to converse with the natives!); singing lessons (for, after having been enraptured by the magnificent Adelina Patti, in Bellini's
La Sonnambula,
she was convinced that she had a trainable soprano voice). Certain of these requests her parents granted, for Malvinia was so persistent in her demands, it was generally easier to give in than to resist: but a plea for special acting lessons, under Professor So-and-so, made in the autumn of 1880, they had refused for financial reasons, thus incurring their daughter's anger. (Indeed, Malvinia had all but quarreled with her belovèd father, on the matter of these troublesome lessons, her mother having refused them outright, as a needless expenditure. “But I assure you, Father, I
must
apply for these lessons,” Malvinia cried, her lovely cheeks blanching, “for all my friends—nearly all my friends—will be taking them: and I shall feel such a countrified little fool!” Mr. Zinn swallowed his amusement, or it may have been his irritation, and said, gently enough: “And
I
shall feel such a countrified fool, my dear child, if you do take them.”)

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

I
n 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.”