A Bloodsmoor Romance (9 page)

And there were numerous other instances, in which “the little mother” exhibited her warm heart, and canny sensibility, with the general consequence that she was the best-loved of the sisters, within the family, and amongst the many servants, at the Octagonal House and the great Hall.

 

CONSTANCE PHILIPPA WAS,
as we have seen, a sternly handsome young lady; Malvinia was known throughout the Bloodsmoor Valley, and in Philadelphia, as an
angelic
beauty; whereas Octavia was deemed but pretty—tho'
very
pretty—with her brown eyes, and somewhat snubbed nose, and soft plump cheeks, and warm smile. I am not certain of her height, but believe it to have been no more than five feet two inches, some seven inches below that of her elder sister's. Her complexion was fresh, tho' oft heated, and rather too pink, or flushed, for Mrs. Zinn's taste; her figure was ample, quite lacking in that angularity that characterized Constance Philippa's, yet, I am sorry to say, possessing very little of that pleasing harmoniousness of proportion, which characterized Malvinia's, and gave her the air of a veritable goddess. (Poor Octavia! I hope I am not injuring her, by confiding in the reader that, try as she would, with the rigorous aid of the servant girls, she could never cinch in her waist below
twenty-four
inches. Whereas Constance Philippa's waist was but
twenty-one
inches; and Malvinia's a lightsome
nineteen.
It is unfair to bring in a comparison with Samantha and Deirdre, who were both unusually petite, and might have given the impression, to the hurried eye, of being mere girl-children of eleven or twelve; unfair, too, to mention, save in passing, that Octavia's white-haired grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Kidde­master, still possessed, at her advanced age, the legendary waist of her youth—a much-envied
seventeen!
)

Like all young ladies who had attained the age of nineteen or twenty, with no definite prospects of marriage, Octavia was oft distracted by thoughts of an anxious nature, for she felt it quite pitiable, that her elder sister was at last engaged, and the beauteous Malvinia might have her pick of attractive suitors, whilst she, for all her good nature, and good works, and resolutely cheerful Christian demeanor, was in danger of being unchosen. If she thought perhaps too frequently of the widower Lucius Rumford, of stately old Rumford Hall, it was not, I should hasten to say, as a consequence of any indelicate inward motion of hers, so far as inclination, or appetite, might be concerned: the predilection had exclusively to do with her eager desire to be wed, and to please her family, and her Maker. “Alas, dear Mother! If I should be left behind, if I should grow an old maid, and
live,
and
die,
without the blessing of a gentleman's love!” Thus Octavia wept in the privacy of Mrs. Zinn's dressing room; and was stoutly encouraged by Mrs. Zinn, who embraced her, and said: “Dear Octavia, that cannot happen, and it shall not: not while I draw breath, and Grandfather Kidde­master befriends us, and there is justice on this earth.”

It was with brave optimism, however, that Octavia prepared her hope chest, as the years passed, for, like any young lady of her station, she would require twelve dozen of everything, and considerable quantities of silver, crystal, and china. She alone of the Zinn girls applied herself with great zeal to those excellent books written by Miss Edwina Kidde­master—
The Young Lady's Friend: A Compendium of Correct Forms
(1864);
The Laws of Etiquette; Or, Short Rules & Reflections for Proper Conduct in Society
(1867);
A Guide to Proper Christian Behavior Amongst Young Persons
(1870);
The Christian House & Home
(1874);
A Manual of Etiquette for All Times & All Ages
(1877), and others, of similar import. (For Great-Aunt Edwina, despite her native modesty as a Bloodsmoor Kidde­master, had attained some eminence in the world of letters, about which I shall have occasion to speak, at a later time.) Octavia also busied herself with close readings of the more crucial articles in
The Ladies' Wreath, Godey's Lady's Book, Youth's Companion, Harper's Bazaar,
and
Peterson's Ladies' National Magazine,
that all facets of life's complexities might be known to her: with the result that Constance Philippa upon more than one occasion swallowed her pride, to ask of Octavia what must be done, if, at a formal dinner party, she was o'ercome by internal gastric distress; or, as a houseguest, she might find herself confronted with those noxious vermin known popularly as
bedbugs.
Since the dramatic appearance of the Baron von Mainz in Constance Philippa's life, that young lady appealed to Octavia for all manner of advice, the which poor Octavia did not hesitate to supply, though her heart was pained, and secret tears welled in her eyes.

Constance Philippa had, some years ago, strongly sued for her own private bedchamber, on the second floor of the Octagonal House; but Octavia shared a cozy, and very prettily appointed, bedchamber with Malvinia, who was wondrously affectionate when the sisters were alone together, and loved nothing better than to confide her secrets to Octavia, and ask advice of divers kinds. (I hope it will not offend the reader, to learn that Malvinia, whilst still a very young and innocent girl, had all unwittingly attracted the attentions of certain gentlemen: these attentions being, to her giddy mind, both flattering and disconcerting,
for she did not comprehend their grave import.
) There were rain-lash'd nights when the sisters would cuddle in their canopied “sleigh” bed, beneath their warm blankets and goosedown quilt, whispering together, and giggling, and, upon occasion, dissolving into heartfelt tears; and, upon more than one tempestuous night, the mercurial Malvinia cried herself to sleep in “the little mother's” accommodating arms. (For Malvinia “adored” her suitor Cheyney Du Pont de Nemours, and “dearly craved” to be wed: and yet, at the very same time, the fickle young lady declared she “wanted never to marry” because she “couldn't abide the thought of a
mustach'd kiss”!
)

Samantha, too, oft appealed to Octavia, in private, despite her proudly stated lack of interest in “female” matters, and her pose of independence within the household. The Octagonal House being modestly compact, rather than o'erlarge, it was the case that Samantha and Deirdre shared a bedchamber: and, I am sorry to say, the experience was a somewhat uneven one, on Samantha's part, though she refrained from outright complaint to her mother. (For Deirdre's behavior was, alas, willful and unpredictable, and had been so, since the first day she was brought to the Octagonal House, as an orphan badly in need of the love of a Christian family. If, upon the morn, she was melancholy of spirit, and leaden of brow, she was sure to be o'erly gay by noon; and sullen by teatime; and irritable by bedtime; and insomniac by night—fearful, or restive, or susceptible to childish fits of giggling, or inexplicable spasms of tears. She was insincere whilst giving every impression of being utterly faithful, to the words she spoke; she was ill-mannered when no adult was near, and then mockingly gracious; she could not, the sisters complained amongst themselves, be
trusted
as to her occasional displays of affection, and of sisterly solicitude. For several years, commencing in 1875, when Deirdre was twelve, the Octagonal House and, in particular, the bedchamber shared by Deirdre and Samantha, was visited by fearsome and ne'er-explained
ghost phenomena,
consisting of bodiless voices, knocks, raps, and other intrusions, and during this tumultuous time the unhappy child also suffered an intensification of those troublesome dreams she routinely endured: the which, as the reader may infer, placed a considerable burden upon poor Samantha, who, chastised for complaining against Deirdre by Mrs. Zinn, sought solace with Octavia. “Alas, I fear that I cannot
love
her!—that I cannot succeed in
liking,
or even in
enduring
her!”—thus Samantha wept angry tears, to be answered by Octavia's warm embrace, and these heartfelt words: “Nay, but in time you will come to love her: if you are patient, and diligent, and pray to Lord Jesus, for the aid He so freely offers us, in combating our sinful natures.”)

Abandoning her own bedchamber, and her adopted sister, Samantha spent many an hour in the company of Octavia and Malvinia, and oft secreted herself in their congenial room, when no one was near. There, she greedily read books from Mr. Zinn's library, with an emphasis less on the Transcendental utterings Mr. Zinn so prized, than on the books and periodicals Mr. Zinn had accumulated, pertaining to scientific discoveries through the ages, and inventions. The girls' educations being irresolute, and subject to some controversy within the family, it was the case that Mr. Zinn assigned “themes” and “problems” to them, for their perusal, and Samantha naturally excelled in such matters, and minded not at all sharing her findings with the others.

Upon one tearful occasion, when it looked as if Samantha would be barred from assisting Mr. Zinn at his work (for Great-Aunt Edwina thought it peculiar, and decidedly indelicate, that, after Samantha's coming-out in Bloodsmoor and Philadelphia society, on the day of her eighteenth birthday, she should continue to spend so many hours in the laboratory in the woods “like a common apprentice-boy”), Octavia soothed the distraught Samantha, and kissed her fever'd brow, and counseled her to do nothing rash—the weeping girl having said she scarcely knew what desperate things: that she would “make a heap of Great-Aunt's execrable books beneath her window, and burn them all in one great bonfire,” that she would “run off, in boy's attire, to Mr. Edison's workshop, and beg to be taken in,” that she would “throw herself into the ravine—and plunge, if God so willed it, into Hell itself.”

Shocking words, to be uttered by a young lady of high station, and considerable intelligence! Yet, such was Octavia's magnanimity of character, she allowed the unseemly outburst to run its course, and advised her sister, with shrewd prescience, that, if she but held her tongue, and did not protest, their aunt would shortly forget; and, Mrs. Zinn rarely being in agreement with Great-Aunt Edwina, she would not care to enforce the elder lady's injunction, so that, within a few weeks, Samantha might all unobtrusively return to her father's side,
with no one the wiser.

When this counsel emerged as faultless, and Samantha did return to the workshop, and to the much-lov'd company of her father and Pip, away off in the woods, it was a joyful sight to see how Samantha embraced the wise Octavia, and declared, with passionate affection, that Octavia had “saved her life,” and that she would be “forever indebted to her.”

Octavia laughed, and kissed Samantha's brow, and allowed that it was but a small thing, for one sister to demonstrate loving concern for another.

 

THUS OCTAVIA WAS
greatly cherished by her three
natural
sisters; but, it gives me pain to say, not by her
adopted
sister.

From the very first, when, brought to the Octagonal House at the age of ten, Deirdre had exhibited a considerable mournfulness of spirit, it was Octavia's intrinsic response to lavish affection upon her: the which was crudely rejected, as the orphan shrank from both embraces and kisses, and grew sullen at the slightest provocation. It was only after a considerable passage of time that she made some pretense of returning Octavia's affection, and then she was so little consistent, that Octavia frequently turned away in tears, quite rebuffed, and bewildered, and querying of herself, how she had
done wrong.

“Nay, pay no attention to Deirdre,” Malvinia whispered, stroking and soothing the weeping Octavia, not many weeks before the very day of the abduction, “for, tho' Mother and Father will have it otherwise, the little hussy is
not
one of us!—and will, if we are fortunate, one day grasp this unalterable fact, and shrink away of her own volition, and save us all great sorrow.”

“That is cruel,” Octavia feebly objected, “that is not in the spirit of the Zinns, Malvinia—”

“It is, then, in the spirit of
Malvinia,
” that forthright young miss proclaimed, “and that will have to suffice, for all.”

Thus Octavia struggled to o'ercome her natural repugnance for the orphan, and, with grim resolution, to continue to return
good
for
evil,
the while years passed, and the sisters grew out of careless childhood, and began to take their places in society: the situation being, at the time of the abduction, that Deirdre alone had yet to make her
début,
the other sisters having successfully come out, in both Bloodsmoor and Philadelphia, under the generous sponsorship of the Kidde­masters. As she matured, Deirdre was less demonstrably ill-natured; yet it could not be argued that she exhibited much warmth for anyone save Mr. Zinn, whom, in any case, all the sisters adored.

But a fortnight previous to the September afternoon, on which our history begins, Octavia had been standing, lost in reverie, at the top of the staircase, in the Octagonal House, so distracted by the troubled thoughts that assailed her, as to her probable spinsterhood, that she failed to hear footsteps behind her, and turned with a startl'd gasp, to see the mournful-countenanced Deirdre, who, showing no agitation herself, calmly reached out to take Octavia's hands in her own, as if to comfort her. That this spontaneous gesture betwixt the sisters, issuing with unprecedented compassion from Deirdre, was most remarkable, and quite astonished Octavia, I hardly need state; and it was all the more disconcerting, in that, for a long moment, the younger sister gazed with a queer avidity into Octavia's eyes, her own being somewhat o'erlarge, and possessing no color in themselves, save perhaps an unnatural silvery-gray, the pupil inordinately dilated. Octavia summoned forth all the strength of which she was capable, to resist snatching her plump warm hands from out the grasp of her sister, whose hands were chill and clammy, and so thin, as to suggest a skeleton's: as she afterward confided in Malvinia, it was all she could do, to refrain from crying aloud, in sheer, thoughtless fright.