A Bloodsmoor Romance Page 6

  But here the fiercely blushing young lady lost her courage, and her words trailed off into shamed silence; and Mrs. Zinn drew herself up to her full height, so that she might stare her impertinent daughter in the eye, and, in a ringing voice, speak in this wise: “That Mr. Zinn and I were agreeably impress’d with each other, upon the occasion of our first meeting, in my godfather Dr. Bayard’s home, is hardly to be denied, since, of course, the first meeting did precipitate a second; and the second, a third. But beyond that, my dear daughter, you have not the privilege to speculate; for I cannot but think it unwholesome, as well as unseemly, for you to concern yourself o’ermuch with such matters,” whereupon the chasten’d young woman murmured her apologies, and withdrew.

  (There is mystery hidden in my parents’ lives, and, doubtless, romance as well, Constance Philippa bethought herself, and yet, how straining to the imagination, to envision!—for they are, now, so very settled in their lives; and so very proper.)

  CONSTANCE PHILIPPA’S MUCH-HERALDED engagement to the Baron was the result of a series of negotiations presided over not by Mr. Zinn (who, necessarily immersed in his work, possessed neither the time, nor the spirit, to oversee his daughters’ matrimonial prospects), but by Grandfather Kidde­master, aided by one or two legal advisors, and, of course, Mrs. Zinn, who applied herself to this task with all the more zeal, in that it had been long-awaited, and, for a time, despaired of—for Constance Philippa had reached an advanced age before a worthy suitor stepped forth: and how many anxious hours had been passed, by Mrs. Zinn, in secret shamed worry, that her Kidde­master cousins should be marrying off their daughters with such ease, and opulent ceremony, whilst the Zinns of Bloodsmoor had yet to celebrate a wedding!

  Now it had come about, however; and all was well; or would shortly be well, when the contractual agreement was settled, and the Baron’s demands met, and the date firmly fixed. From time to time Mr. Zinn amiably inquired as to the proceedings, and was met by a blank startl’d expression on his daughter’s face, followed by a severe blush, and an immediate warm response from his wife: “My dear John, all is moving ahead with agreeable alacrity, and you should not trouble yourself, any more than Constance Philippa should trouble herself, with vexing details.”

  “So long as the young persons are happy, and the Baron is conscious of his good fortune, in such wise as Tennyson discerned,” Mr. Zinn benignly observed, pausing, and drawing breath, that he might recite, with near-shut eyes and an expression, directed toward Constance Philippa, of such abstracted love, that the poor girl blushed all the more fiercely!—these lyric words, of the great Poet Laureate:

  Indeed I know

  Of no more subtle master under Heaven

  Than is the maiden passion for a maid,

  Not only to keep down the base in man,

  But teach high thought, and amiable words,

  And courtliness, and the desire of Fame,

  And love of Truth, and all that makes a man.

  Whilst in secret, the unhappy daughter suffered these curious—nay, maddening—words to tumble through her brain, as if they possessed a volition of their own, and an energy, proportionate to Mr. Zinn’s: The little ones picked the bones O! The bones O! The bones O! And the little ones picked the bones O!

  FIVE

  Alas, to be gifted with the semblance of omniscience, in thus recording the history of the Zinn family, yet not with omnipotence!—for though I can foresee the numerous vicissitudes of fortune, and the several tragedies, that lie ahead for Constance Philippa and her sisters, I cannot of course guide their destinies: this chronicle being a faithful recording of events long past, and not a mere fictional fancy, in which, at will, the author directs the fate of this personage, and now that, in accordance with some whimsical scheme.

  Thus, I am filled with an unspeakable sorrow, to carry in my heart the knowledge that Constance Philippa will indeed be a bride—yet not, to the griev’d consternation of her family, a wife.

  IT WAS WELL for her peace of mind, however, and that of her sisters, that, as she sat in the stately gazebo, gazing with disapprobation after Deirdre’s departing figure, Constance Philippa knew nothing of this; and, indeed, the surprise of Deirdre’s ill-mannered exit so occupied her thoughts, that she had quite forgotten the Baron, and was caught up in her sisters’ divers commentaries on the incident: whether it was to be adjudged an insult to them, or naught but another manifestation of Deirdre’s uncouth nature; whether it warranted reporting to Mrs. Zinn, or had best remain unmentioned.

  In the midst of this murmurous disputation Constance Philippa said, in a voice suddenly brusque with impatience: “Let her go, she is not one of us! A cringing dog does invite the boot.”

  “You are cruel,” Octavia cried, in her excited alarm, rising to her feet with such unwise alacrity, that, for a long moment, she felt quite faint: for her numerous hair switches, and her large festooned hat, and her many-skirted dress, and innumerable petticoats, and, most constraining of all, her corset, had acted in some unfortunate wise, in conjunction with the hot shortcake, apricot-cream trifles, shaved beef, Virginia ham, and other dainties of the tea, as to induce sensations of giddiness and dyspepsia in the o’erheated young lady: the which she managed to subdue, for her sense of injustice was such that she could not allow her sisters to malign poor Deirdre. “You are cruel—you are unfair—you are not sisterly,” she pronounced, “and, I am bound to say, you are not Christian, to speak thusly.”

  “And you, dear Octavia, are but o’erwrought,” Malvinia archly said, “as a consequence of a surfeit of Mr. Rumford, and other captivating gentlemen, at this afternoon’s festivity.”

  “There is no need for further insult,” Octavia exclaimed, fanning herself hurriedly, as, alas, her plump affronted heart beat so very hard, she felt still the danger of faintness. “You have wronged poor Deirdre, and I believe I shall go to her: for it is very, very wicked of you to allude to her unfortunate background, and to suggest that she is less loved than the others of us.”

  “ ‘Less loved’?” queried Constance Philippa, with an expression of amused scorn. “I should not have said that she was loved at all, should you, Malvinia?—and see no reason for all this fuss.”

  Whereupon Constance Philippa and Malvinia succumbed to lightsome laughter, the while purse-lipped Samantha looked resolutely away, working on her cross-stitching, and making a pretense of hearing none of this, though Octavia was prick’d close to tears: “Nay, it is truly unchristian of you, to utter such wicked thoughts! I fear Our Lord has heard you, and is most surprised and displeased, the more so in that you are not commonfolk, but Zinns.”

  Yet, alas, the wanton sisters did not curtail their mirth, still less did they offer any sign of chagrin or apology!—so that Octavia was moved to further exclaim: “I pray Mother will send for us presently, that we may be safely escorted to our own home: for, I fear, something unlook’d-to may transpire, before this day is done.”

  Whereupon frolicksome Malvinia opened her lovely blue eyes wide, in a pretense of anticipation: “Something ‘unlook’d-to,’ Octavia? Why, are you not teasing?—are you not being cruel? I cannot recall an ‘unlook’d-to’ event in recent memory, in our placid Bloodsmoor!”

  And, to their shame, both Constance Philippa and Samantha joined in her gay careless laughter, the which surely was heard by the weeping Deirdre; and, I am bound to say, by Our Lord Himself.

  MY PREFERENCE FOR Miss Octavia Theodora Zinn, the most sweetly acquiescent of the sisters, will be, I believe, given further validity, by that comely young lady’s eventual fate, so far as marital experience is concerned: tho’ it is not to be denied that she will suffer, and suffer greatly, before her piety, diligence, generosity of spirit, and intrinsic Christian demeanor are suitably rewarded.

  Octavia was now twenty-one years of age, and had, from perhaps the tender age of ten, been lovingly called “the little lady,” and ofttimes “the little woman,” by both her family and the household staff: as a consequence of the
precocity of her figure, and its agreeable plumpness, and her own maturity of manner. (Indeed, Octavia had blossomed so prematurely, in terms of her feminine attributes, that Great-Aunt Edwina, the unrivaled arbiter of such matters within the family, had found it necessary to decree—with not a little alarm, and some natural repugnance—that the child, then but ten years of age, must be fitted at once for a full-figure corset: it being something of a scandal to allow the little girl to appear, even in the nursery, with her flesh unbound and “aquiver,” as Great-Aunt Edwina put it, “in every direction.”) That her manner was unfailingly mature, and wondrously magnanimous, should not have greatly surprised, I am bound to say, seeing that Octavia was, after all, a Kidde­master by blood; yet such were the displays of ill-temper by Constance Philippa, and wanton capriciousness by Malvinia, and, at times, a most unnatural ratiocinative preoccupation, on the part of little Samantha, that the second-eldest bloomed the more admirably, and exhibited all those traits and virtues the world is wont to term gracious, and genteel, and those of a born lady.

  Indeed, as Mrs. Zinn had every reason to modestly pronounce, to her wide circle of female acquaintances, Octavia had oft been called, even as a young girl, “the little mother” as well, in consequence of her loving concern for children younger than herself, and the tremulous intensity of her feeling. She wept as readily over others’ mishaps as over her own; her warm brown eyes were all aglow, when she was allowed into the presence of an infant; she loved to fuss over very small children, kissing and fondling them, and begging to be allowed to hold them. (The innocent little miss quite shocked Mrs. Zinn and several of her lady visitors one afternoon when, in a shy yet firm voice, she announced that she was most eager to acquire an adorable babe of her own, once she was tall enough, and strong enough, to safely carry it!)

  Upon one fearsome occasion, when she was but six years of age, Octavia had managed to save two-year-old Samantha from drowning in the old stone wishing well behind Kidde­master Hall: that precociously inquisitive, and naughty, child having crawled over the rim of the well, to “determine, to her satisfaction, how deep the water might be.” (Though this quaint and rough-hewn well, with its handsome fieldstone, and sturdy oak, was agreeable enough, to the casual eye, its interior was, withal, somewhat sinister: the waters being very deep, and altogether devoid of light, and unhappily odoriferous.) The unreliable Irish girl in charge of the children had, to her shame, fallen asleep, thus allowing the restless Samantha to make her way directly to the well, with that instinct for dangerous mischief that would, with the passage of time, frequently declare itself in the red-haired little miss; and, with no thought whatsoever of her own safety, Octavia had dashed forward to seize her baby sister, and to save her, the while screaming for aid. Thus “the little mother” prevented a tragedy from occurring, and was so innocent of heart, and so devoid of vanity, that she but fiercely blushed at the professed gratitude of all, and pronounced that “Lord Jesus had taken Samantha in His arms—and not Octavia!”

  Upon another upsetting occasion, some years later, Octavia was the sole girl to remain composed when Constance Philippa cut her face whilst playing in one of the apple trees behind the Octagonal House—a grotesque, and, it hardly needs to be said, forbidden activity, quite inappropriate for a young female. Constance Philippa was then eleven years of age, and, though fully clothed, in skirts, petticoats, cotton stockings, morning cap, and even a tulle veil, to protect her fresh complexion against the sun’s coarse rays, she had wantonly decided to climb a tree, as she had witnessed the servants’ sons do, back in the woods, as much for the unlikely sport of it, as for purposes of shocking, and titillating, her small audience, consisting that day of little Miss Delphine Martineau, and little Cousin Rowena, as well as her own sisters. (Alas, this bold action prognosticates great sorrow, and not a little scandal, to come—the which will be, I am gravely sorry to say, well borne out, by Constance Philippa’s behavior, in the darksome years that lie ahead.) I am not certain as to the accident’s precise details, but, within minutes, after the headstrong young miss had climbed but ten or twelve feet above the ground, she lost her footing, and slipped, and fell, scraping her tender hands, and badly ripping her bodice, and, most alarming of all, so cutting her jaw, that blood sprang forth, and copiously flowed.

  Well may the sensitive reader recoil, in alarm, pity, and disgust; and, doubtless, as I am bound to confess I do, experience some momentary faintness, at the mere pictur’d notion, of a young girl of good family falling through the air, shrieking for help, and so badly injuring her delicate face, that a great quantity of blood freely flowed, for all to see! Indeed, three of the witnesses—Malvinia, Delphine, and Rowena—were so terrified at the spectacle, and so sickened by the outpouring of blood, that, within seconds, they sank to the ground in swoons; and Constance Philippa herself, her bravado being quite fled, went a hideous chalk-white, and, lying piteously upon the ground, began to weep, and to whimper with fear, as a much younger child might have done. Nonetheless, amidst all this confusion, the ten-year-old Octavia summoned forth enough strength of character, and maturity of spirit, to o’ercome her natural revulsion, and to rush to the hapless child’s side, there to stanch the flow of blood first with her apron, and then with her pretty new beribboned morning cap, the while embracing her sister, to comfort her, and to steady her; and murmuring these astonishing words: “Dear Constance Philippa, do not despair! Jesus is with us—Jesus helps me hold you—He will stop the dreadful bleeding, and make you well!—for He loves you, dear sister, and will not inordinately punish you, for all that you have displeased Him, in disobeying Father’s and Mother’s wishes!”—words which, no doubt, had their desired effect, in calming the frightened girl.

  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 appet
ite, 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.