A Bloodsmoor Romance (10 page)

After some awkward moments, during which the pale Deirdre continued to gaze into Octavia's eyes, and to squeeze her unresisting hands, the younger sister ventured, in her low, whispery voice, this decidedly peculiar statement: that she had comprehended, of a sudden, the worry that so darkly abided in Octavia's heart, and “felt compelled” to hurry to her, to comfort her with the wisdom that, much great suffering being in store for her, in the years to come, it would be well for her, and surely practical, to
rejoice
now, and to leave
sorrow
for later.

“A cruel—nay, a hideous—comfort!” Octavia proclaimed, afterward, to the sympathetic Malvinia; “and the malevolent chill of the creature's hands! Though I suppose she meant well; and acted out of a compulsion of generosity, unskill'd in her.”

“Generosity!” Malvinia laughed, with infinite scorn. “Nay, I should term it the reverse; and only pray that she should not undertake such a pretense with
me,
and seek to squeeze
my
hands!”

SIX

Since memory's birth, no year but took

Something the heart held dear;

Each page of life on which we look,

Is blotted with a tear.

—MRS. S. T. MARTYN

A
las, impetuous Malvinia!—“The Rose of the Kidde­master Garden,” as all of Bloodsmoor was wont to call her, to the silent dismay of her less comely sisters—for it was a
careless attitude
of her own, pertaining to Deirdre, that helped precipitate the tragic mischance to come.

Bitter is this ironical fact; yet is it not profound, and instructive, as well?—partaking of that
cosmic scope
of the tragic, that so guided the hands of the ancient tragedians, as to temper their rude heathen energies with genius, and to provide us with immortal portraits of self-delusion, and self-ruin: the principle being that, unbeknownst to the protagonist, his actions, and his very attitude, necessitate his calamitous fall.

Yet, I submit, nothing could have seemed more innocent, and more sisterly, than Malvinia's behavior on the morn of the abduction: the which, rudely spurned by Deirdre, must have had much to do with the mocking words we have recently heard uttered, in the Kidde­master gazebo.

For, taking pity on her adopted sister's plainness, and the particular misfortune of her hair style, the beauteous Malvinia had offered to make repairs—with what consequences, we shall see.

 

MUCH ADMIRED, AND,
indeed, much envied, Miss Malvinia Zinn was a young lady of lithe and aristocratic height, always fastidiously groomed, and attired in impeccable taste, within the financial limitations set by her father's modest income. She possessed a graceful carriage, with sloping shoulders, and slender arms, and perfectly proportion'd hands; her waist required very little forcible cinching, to be marvelously slim; her foot was agreeably small, though she oft succumbed to some small gesture of vanity, in insisting to the cobbler that her shoes were a perfect fit, when in fact they were tight, and caused her some secret agony, the more so when she danced.

Her rich dark hair was voluptuously threaded with lightsome shades of brown, and auburn, and red; and there were some stray hairs of a mysterious hue of silver, or silver-blond. Her eyes were of that regal blue of the flower known as Greek Valerian—a bountiful cluster of which, in fact, the adoring Cheyney Du Pont de Nemours had surreptitiously pressed upon her, not many days previous to the tea. These eyes sparkled, and glowed, and were capable of darkening, with the onset of tempestuous ill-humor; they were almond-shaped, wondrously bright, with fine thick lashes; oft dancing; covert, and sly, and teasing; childlike in innocence; angelic; and then, alas!—of a sudden, narrowed, and flashing, and demonic; yet no less captivating, as her numerous admirers would attest.

Her neck was long and slender, of that graceful beauty associated with the swan; her ears, somewhat elongated, possessed an exquisite shell-like translucence. An almost imperceptible widow's peak, the which faintly adumbrated that of her noble grandfather, Judge Kidde­master, gave to her lovely face a heart-shaped poignancy that many gentlemen (not excluding her own dear father) found remarkable, and infinitely pleasurable to gaze upon. Yet, withal, and unbeknownst to her, Malvinia Zinn, like many individuals of extreme beauty, possessed an aura of something
uncanny
—less definite, and less distracting, than that of Deirdre; but tangible nonetheless. In all her girlish, and therefore innocent, labors, to make herself the more beautiful, and the more fascinating, to society, the young woman had no clear understanding of how fascinating—nay, how disturbing—she was in truth.

“Am I pretty?” she had demanded, as a very young child, of a nursemaid, or tutor, or one of her sisters, or Mrs. Zinn, or, upon occasion, Mr. Zinn himself. “Am I pretty enough? Shall I be beautiful when I grow up?”—the while peering into the glass, and sighing, and crinkling her smooth little forehead in an expression of doubt.

“You are pretty now,” she would be told, with a kiss, “and you shall be even prettier, when you grow up.”

“But shall I be
pretty enough?
Shall I be
beautiful enough?
” Thus the charming little miss refused to be placated.

At the age of twenty, Malvinia, like most of her circle, talked and worried ceaselessly about her complexion, the which was subjected to methodical treatments with such creams, oils, and washes, as Esprit de Cédrat, Sirop de Boubie, Bouquet de Victoria, honey amber, and Micheaux's Freckle Wash; and protected from the fearsome rays of the sun, by gauzelike veils of a therapeutic thickness, and wide-brimmed hats, and silken sunshades, required in all but the most gloomy weather. Such cautions did not invariably produce dewy-moist and luminous skin, it hardly needs to be said, but Malvinia's was indeed flawless; and her high-boned cheeks were touched with the most subtle of rosy blushes, by natural art. (Alas, in later years, to her shame, Malvinia would more and more employ
cosmetics,
including even lipstick, rouge, and black mascara, that she might succeed in counterfeiting that very naturalness of beauty, so confidently, and proudly, hers, in youth.)

Even in the cradle, Malvinia was her father's favorite; though that gentleman, possessed of absolute good sense, did his best to disguise the fact, in order not to upset the other girls. Yet Malvinia surprised all by being the brightest, or, at any rate, the most clever, of the sisters, during those sporadic periods when Mr. Zinn, impatient with tutors, governesses, and formal school, undertook to educate his daughters himself, in the schoolroom-nursery of the Octagonal House. (For Mr. Zinn, as I believe I have mentioned, enjoyed an early and very successful career as an educator, of radical principles, before his marriage to Prudence, and his embarkment upon a career of invention.)

Throughout his life, John Quincy Zinn attested to the belief that the child's soul, pristine and unblemish'd, is a fathomless reservoir of wisdom; and that the skillful teacher is one who, rather than imposing knowledge from
without,
seeks instead to draw—by artful persuasion, by “Socratic” interrogation, or any wholesome means—this very wisdom from
within.
Thus the little Zinn girls took instruction simply by answering questions put to them, as methodically and patiently as possible, by their devoted father, making an effort to
deduce,
or even to
remember,
truths which resided intrinsically within them: and it was Malvinia, mercurial, bright, indefatigable in her father's presence, who shone above the others, though one might have thought both Constance Philippa and Samantha superior to her, in intelligence.

(Let us picture Malvinia at the age of seven, sitting pert, erect, and unfidgeting, at the little hickory desk with the spool-turned legs, which Mr. Zinn himself had lovingly fashioned, in his spare time: let us picture her with small hands clasped eagerly in her apron'd lap, and wide blue eyes solemnly fixed upon her father's handsome countenance, as,
for long as an hour at a time,
he conscientiously interrogated her, in such wise:

MR. ZINN:
Do you think, Malvinia, there is
one
Soul, or
many?

MALVINIA:
One, Father.

MR. ZINN:
And why is that, Malvinia?

MALVINIA:
Because the
one
that came first would then make the
other ones
—it would be the strongest of all—it would be the
Father.

MR. ZINN:
And how would you characterize this Soul, Malvinia?

MALVINIA:
It would be like—like a Poppa—it would love the little souls—it would take care of them.

MR. ZINN:
And would they take care of one another?

MALVINIA:
Yes—because they are all sisters and brothers.

MR. ZINN:
Very good, my dear!—very good indeed. And now tell me, where does the Soul reside?

MALVINIA:
Where—where you can't see it.

MR. ZINN:
But where is that, Malvinia?

MALVINIA:
Oh—far away, I think. Back behind the mountains. Where the sun comes from.

MR. ZINN:
And is the Soul anywhere else?

MALVINIA:
Yes—it is everywhere, I think—it must be everywhere—like rain when it rains—like snow in the winter.

MR. ZINN:
And how do you know that with certainty, dear child?

MALVINIA:
Because—because we are all made by it—sisters and brothers of the same Father.

MR. ZINN:
Is the Great Soul
inside
you, Malvinia, or
outside?

MALVINIA:
It is inside, I think—and outside too.

MR. ZINN:
How can you discover it inside?

MALVINIA:
By closing my eyes.

MR. ZINN:
Very good, dear! And how can you discover it outside?

MALVINIA:
By loving my sisters, and my father and mother, and Grandmother and Grandfather Kidde­master, and Great-Aunt Edwina, and Great-Uncle Vaughan, and all my cousins, and—and all of the world!—for the Soul resides in all, and I am only good, when, by loving
them,
I love
it.
)

IT IS TO
be remarked that, long before her infamous
career
was begun, and long, indeed, before it was even dreamt of, in the solitary recesses of her heart, Miss Malvinia Zinn was a consummate actress, albeit of an altogether innocent type: most happily herself, and consequently possessed of a radiant beauty, when she had the occasion to perform for others—as if preening, with childlike vanity, before a mirror.

Thus “The Rose of the Kidde­master Garden” had no need, like poor Octavia, to pore over Aunt Edwina's numerous manuals, or to peruse, with knitted brow, the new issue of
Godey's Lady's Book,
in order to be sufficiently charming, to the opposite sex: she knew by instinct how to give her numerous admirers the very same rapt attention, which never lacked, at the moment, in sincerity, that she had, in the nursery, given her dear father.

Accomplished as she was in every social, and public, respect, I am bound to confess that Malvinia's famed vivacity, and above all the bountifulness of her lovely smile, did not invariably extend themselves to those closest to her—to her sisters, in truth. Ofttimes unprovok'd quarrels arose, betwixt Malvinia and Constance Philippa: for the eldest Zinn daughter declared herself exasperated, and resolutely
uncharmed,
by Malvinia's queenly manner, and could not resist challenging her, on certain of her remarks. Infrequent indeed were quarrels betwixt Malvinia and Octavia, but this might have been because the latter was so tirelessly generous, and so forgiving of all trespass, that Malvinia had no cause for annoyance: many were the times Octavia took great pains to dress Malvinia's hair in a particularly demanding style, adjudged to be beyond the skills of the Zinns' single lady's maid; many were the times Malvinia declared herself
desperate,
and but
partly clad,
if she could not borrow for an afternoon, or an evening, or a weekend, some pretty accessory of her sister's—she so passionately coveted a lovely East Indian shawl of fine twilled goat's wool, a gift to Octavia from Grandmother Kidde­master, and borrowed it so frequently, that, in obedience to the promptings of her heart, Octavia freely gave it to her: this being but one of numerous instances of Octavia's generosity, beginning when the girls were yet very young, and hardly out of the nursery.

If Malvinia had not quarreled o'ermuch with Samantha, it was primarily because this child, for many years the youngest of the Zinn girls, struck her as insignificant: so plain, so prim, so pinched of demeanor, with her nose always in a book, or her pencil rapidly scribbling on one of Mr. Zinn's yellow sheets of foolscap!—nay, poor Samantha could not be taken seriously, as a worthy sister, still less as a rival. (So secure was Malvinia in Mr. Zinn's love, that she never troubled to feel jealousy over the fact that Samantha spent so many hours of the day in the workshop above the gorge, playing at being her father's apprentice; for Malvinia had known from the cradle that
she
was Mr. Zinn's favorite, and could not be dislodged from that belief.)

“Am I pretty? Shall I be prettier still?” So Malvinia queried her mirror image, as, with the passage of time, she comprehended that it was
not done,
to speak thusly to others. “Shall I be known as the most beautiful of the Zinn girls?—nay, the most beautiful of all the girls of Bloodsmoor?”