A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates

  Tho’ the hour is late—alas, the proud old bells of Trinity have chimed four!—& I sense myself sadly enfeebl’d, I cannot bid farewell to those whom I love so dearly, without copying, in this document, a poem of singular inspiration, that flowed from my pen one morn some years ago, as I sat myself down, for my customary six-hour stint, before the midday repast, & to my astonishment felt not a whit of interest, in the subject at hand (tho’ a most intricate problem, of grave social consequence, pertaining to the employment of stuffed, & of imitation, furred creatures—amongst them martens, minks, squirrels, small rabbits, and even, upon occasion, the handsomer breed of cat, and the comelier members of the ouistitis family—in the hats, bodices, and sleeves, of ladies of fashion, in the Eighties): I sat myself down, as I said, &, most astonish’d, pushed aside the manuscript upon which I was working, & drew out a fresh sheet of paper, & felt my pen quiver with the giddy energies of the Muse, so rarely allowed me in my lifetime: & penned, within the space of a transcendent hour, this poem—later to appear, under a pseudonym, in The Ladies’ Wreath:

  FAME

  O tell me not that lofty minds may bow

  In reverential homage, to a thought of mine—

  That laurels yet may greenly deck this brow,

  Or that my silent grave may be a shrine

  In after-years, where men may rudely crowd,

  To mark how low my once-great dust is bow’d.

  O Fame is not for Woman: she must yield

  The very essence of her being up;

  Bare her full heart, fling off its golden shield,

  And drain its very life to fill the cup!—

  Which, like a brimming goblet rich with wine,

  She poureth out upon the world’s broad shrine.

  Upon its golden rim they grave her name,

  Fling back the empty bowl—and this is Fame!

  And yet—methinks if sometimes lingered one

  Whose noble presence unto me hath been

  As music to the harp, around the home

  Which death hath given me, though all unseen,

  The sweet, mysterious sympathies which drew

  My love to his, as blossoms drink the dew,

  Would once again arouse a spirit strife,

  And wake my marble heart once more to life.

  Ask me not then to toil for wealth, and fame,

  But touch my heart with sweet affection’s name!

  THUS, MR. BASIL MILLER concluded his poignant reading of that remarkable document, “The Confession of a Penurious Sinner,” from the pen of Miss Edwina Kidde­master, deceased: and I am not able to convey, in the frail apparatus of words, the atmosphere of tearful release, that reigned supreme in the Golden Oak room!—save to say that not an individual remained unmov’d; and there were one or two, whose lives were permanently alter’d.

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Before proceeding with my story, and leaping ahead to that hour, but a few days later, when, beneath that very same roof, the magnanimous Deirdre made her pronouncement (as to the equal distribution of her new-gained wealth, amongst her family), there is a small correction that should be made, for the benefit of the scholarly reader.

  A minor, and, I think, a not very significant fact: that that song known to thousands of music-loving Americans, as Schubert’s “Adieu! ’Tis Love’s Last Greeting,” was not from the pen of that composer at all—but from that of one August Heinrich von Weyrauch, of whom, I am afraid, very few of us have heard; tho’ doubtless, considering his name, we should judge him a compatriot of Herr Schubert.

  This error, I should hasten to explain, was not Edwina Kidde­master’s alone, but a general error, amongst the publishers of sheet music, and the enthusiastic but untutor’d public. Schubert being famous, and von Weyrauch sadly unknown, it seems a comprehensible error, and one of no great import: so I hope that those readers of skeptical persuasion, of whom, I suppose, there are some, will not consider it an ironical note, in the midst of the deceased Edwina’s noble pathos. For it is the sentiment of romance, and not the precisian’s exactitude, that moves our hearts.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  It was on a balmy April Sunday, but a week past Easter, that, at tea time, Deirdre rose to make her historic pronouncement, her once-pallid cheeks now flushed with warmth, and her darksome eyes shining with a pleasure almost girlish: she rose, and lifted her lovely proud head, and all in the room grew silent at once, in anticipation of her words.

  Yet she was shy!—she, the new mistress of Kidde­master Hall, and the inheritrix of such incalculable wealth!—so that, at the very first, her voice quavered, and she was obliged to grip quite tightly her crimson silk-and-sandalwood fan.

  “It is my wish”—Deirdre spoke—“of which a few individuals have already been informed, that my unlook’d-to good fortune not reside with me alone: for such, I cannot think, would have been the ultimate wish, of my deceased mother”—and here the greatly moved young lady paused, her eyes visibly moistening, and it was some seconds before she could continue—“my deceased mother, whose words, and whose model, have so powerfully impressed upon us all, the merit of Christian charity, and Christian love. That I might once, in my ignorance and self-absorption, have imagin’d injustice, and prejudice, and cruelty, and ill-will, and despair, and the minor sorts of failings—a niggardliness of spirit, an inappropriate jealousy, simple mockery—in the very midst of my adopted home, and, indeed, in the world in general, is a measure of my own blindness, of which I am now asham’d. Spite!—envy!—jeering glances, and curled lips!—revulsion for one’s very being, on this earth: all this is not very flattering to me, when, at the present time, I cast my thoughts back, and realize that my own penury of spirit gave substance to these fancies, or, it may be, too energetically seized upon some small provocation, in the world, that, to feed my bitter heart, might then be exaggerated. For this troublesome imperfection in myself, I must beg your forgiveness: and pray that the past’s negligible shadows might be forgot, in order that the greater share, which resided in sunshine, may, in memory, the more vividly define itself.”

  Deirdre then paused but a moment, her lovely bright eyes moving about the room, to rest upon the sympathetic and enthused countenances, that, in nearly every instance, were turned to her, as blooms to the April sun: and, taking heart from these encouraging expressions, and from some slow-gathering sense of her rightful significance (and, it may have been, from a modest—nay, reluctant—admission of her own healthsome beauty, the which had been skillfully enhanced, at her morning toilette, by Malvinia, whose practic’d and affectionate fingers had, once again, fashioned a most becoming hair style: a French chignon, its severity prettified by tight curls and loose, even languid, ringlets): taking heart too, we may assume, by her increasing sense that her mother would certainly have concurred, did in fact concur, as if her spirit dwelt in this very room!—she drew breath, and spoke more firmly, the while a girlish smile played about her finely sculpted lips: “It is my wish, then, which I have been encouraged to think, by Cousin Basil, is not only just, but, even more significant, to the law!—practicable, that I assign to him, and to his associates, the considerable responsibility of assessing my inheritance, that it might, as soon as is reasonably possible, be divided equally amongst myself, and those six persons closest to me: my dear parents, and my sisters, Mr. and Mrs. Zinn to constitute, as is only proper, two persons; and Mr. Philippe Fox, in his role as agent for Constance Philippa, to be allowed such share, as, were she present in the East, my eldest sister would then receive.”

  Tho’, as Deirdre had indicated, one or two persons—amongst them Malvinia—knew beforehand, of the substance of this announcement, and tho’ it would not have required an intelligence of great acumen, to anticipate, from various smiles and hints of Cousin Basil, that some very magnanimous—nay, queenly—disclosure was to be made, this little speech of Deirdre’s was greeted with so stunned, and so gladsome, a general response, as to make the representation of it, in the chill rigors of
prose, quite impossible! Imagine instead, if you will, a Bloodsmoor spring sickl’d over with the pale remnants of winter’s snow, beneath a sombre and oppressive sky, ponderous with clouds: imagine, then, the first peepings of those lovely flowers known as snowdrops, forcing their valiant way through the cruel-crust’d earth: and then, of a sudden, the sun!—the sun!—bursting wide, and scattering the ill-visagèd clouds, to transform with his manly virility the very world itself, from horizon to horizon: but shining most significantly upon those selfsame snowdrops, that had, perhaps, registered some doubt, as to whether they had proceeded into the world with unwise precipitousness, and might have been preordained for a snowy death, and a snowy burial! But now my own words are inadequate; and I must give over, to one of the masters of our native poesy, Mr. Longfellow, who, in “The Lily and the Rose,” illumines a scene not unlike the one I have painted, and concludes, in regard to the flowers with their “light and soullike wings”—

  And with childlike, credulous affection,

  We behold their tender buds expand;

  Emblems of our own great resurrection,

  Emblems of the bright and better land!

  —and thus indeed it was, upon that momentous occasion in the history of the Kidde­masters, when all eyes without exception flooded with tears, and, at the last, the breathless young inheritrix was so moved, she turned aside weeping, to be crushed in an embrace by Octavia, and passionately admonished: “Oh, you are too good!—too good!—it is not deserved!—it is too generous!—our hearts will break!”

  SEVENTY-NINE

  Ah, how passionately I should like to conclude A Bloodsmoor Romance upon this gladsome note, our heroine’s Kidde­master blood belatedly, but trenchantly, triumphing over her plebeian inclinations!—with, in fact, a sisterly embrace, all the more emotional, in that Deirdre and Octavia are not sisters, but cousins: the which relationship, as we have seen, is, in this particular context, a very special one indeed.

  (Nor was the tearful Octavia the only sister to rush to Deirdre, to fold her in an embrace: the pale-lipped and trembling Malvinia also approached, as did the flushing, o’erjoyed Samantha; and, tho’ he held himself at the periphery of the circle, for some minutes, Mr. Philippe Fox finally approached Deirdre as well, to offer her a vigorous, and very warm, handshake, and to thank her vehemently, in Constance Philippa’s place, “for her Christian—nay, preternatural—munificence.”)

  Or, if it would strike the reader’s sensibility as too abrupt, to consummate my history at this point, teatime of April 26, 1899, what a pleasure it would be, to do nothing more taxing than to leap sunnily ahead, and transcribe merely the felicitous events that lie in wait: the vast contentment enjoy’d by Samantha, and her devoted Nahum, and their several children, as a consequence of Deirdre’s generosity; the flower-bedecked wedding of Malvinia and her faithful Malcolm Kennicott, in late September, in our historic old Trinity Church; the surprise betrothal of Octavia and the genial Sean McInnes, that tall, craggy-featur’d, red-haired Irishman, of whom it was said, by Octavia’s family, that he behaved with as much natural dignity, as if he were an Anglo-Saxon. (It quite won their hearts, that Sean should so clearly adore his young stepson Lucius Quincy: a subdued, slender-framed, but gay-spirited child, whose infant’s blond hair was gradually darkening to a fine burnished red-brown: so that, one day, well before his teens, the stepson might possess certain of the attributes of a son, quite by happenstance!)

  Nor should I shrink from delineating certain of the remarkable changes undergone by Mrs. Zinn: the most defiant, perhaps, being her employment, as Mrs. Abba Goold Woolson’s sponsor and aide, in the Ladies’ Dress Reform Movement, of her maiden name!—as if she were but Prudence Kidde­master, after so many fruitful decades, and never Mrs. John Quincy Zinn. Yet her stubbornness, and her perversity, were such that, despite her station, she insisted upon being known as Miss Kidde­master, or even Prudence! (To her shame, Prudence was to be one of some seventy-five Dress Reform and Suffragette persons, arrested on Boston Common, for illicit marching, picketing, and demonstrating, in support of the futile “candidacy for President of the United States,” of one of their number—this campaign undertaken despite the fact that the female sex had not the privilege of the vote! Was there ever a more foolish, and a more vainglorious, occupation? Prudence was seventy-six years old at the time of her arrest, in November of 1899, yet, when the examining magistrate sought to dismiss charges against her, that she might return home safely to her husband, her children, and her grandchildren, she vociferously protested, saying that her “home” was with her comrades in the movement: and if that meant jail, why then, jail it must be. “We are prepared,” Prudence declared, “for all you can exact from us.”)

  Nor would I find it o’erly distasteful, tho’ certainly it would be a sorrowful undertaking, to provide the reader with some small sense, of the mingled bitterness, and triumph, and frustration, and worry, and turmoil, and gratification, and puzzlement, to be endur’d by John Quincy Zinn: in part, because of his belovèd wife’s defection; but more as a consequence of his still-deepening obsession with his work. (For the poor man took little pleasure, in his adopted daughter’s generosity, feeling it, perhaps, no more than his due; and he seemed to know by instinct that he had but an abbreviated time to live—and to perfect, for future generations of Americans, the elusive principle of the perpetual-motion machine.)

  Nor, I suppose, would it be entirely repugnant to me, to address myself to the predicament of the young heiress Deirdre Zinn: for, after several weeks, when the flurried excitement of the bequest had somewhat abated, she could not blind herself to the great paradox of her existence, which suitor to accept. (That other eligible bachelors were beginning to present themselves, not excluding certain Kidde­master cousins, and Basil Miller himself!—does not concern us here, since it did not concern our heroine. Indeed, she cast a gaily sardonic eye upon these gentlemen, inquiring as to whether they sought her, or her mother’s daughter, for a bride.) “Your newfound wealth, and your newfound station in society, do, I confess, gravely intimidate me,” the noble-brow’d Dr. Stoughton said, bending a resolute gaze upon Deirdre, “yet, I am bound to say, no more than your beauty, and grace of person, of old.” Thus Dr. Lionel Stoughton: and now hear the swarthy-skinned Hassan Agha, in his petition!

  “In these wondrously-alter’d circumstances of yours, my dear Deirdre, you will require, more than ever, a husband,” Mr. Agha declared, in a low importunate voice, his eyes slyly shining. “A husband, moreover, who is not so lily-livered, as to be uxorious; nor so much of the rank and privilege of old society, as to commandeer your fortune, and you. Come, then, let us make an agreement at once: will you be my bride? My headstrong Lolo!”

  Was there ever so bold, so vain, so impetuous a creature?

  Possessed of the Indian cobra’s eerie stealth, and the tiger’s hot-gleaming eyes, with small even teeth, white as ivory, bared in a sensual smile: a complexion of amazing smoothness, yet olive-dark, and oft tinted by a fine film of damp, or oil: his date-black eyes thickly lashed, and outrageous in their presumed intimacy!—this is the suitor Deirdre could not bring herself to reject, tho’ her heart, I am certain, resided with the Christian Dr. Stoughton. There may have been, from time to time, some subtle upsurging, in Mr. Agha’s dark blood, of his mother’s lineage—there may even have been, in the planes and angles of his face, some scarce-perceptible outline, of an Anglo-Saxon ancestor, the which drew Deirdre to him, against her wishes.

  Once, there being no servant close by, Hassan Agha made so bold as to seize Deirdre’s hand, and would have brought it to his o’erwarm lips, had she not snatched it away at once, and rose to her feet, her bosom heaving in visible distress. “You must leave!” the agitated young lady fiercely said. “I cannot be so insulted!”

  As if uncoiling from his snake’s posture, Hassan Agha rose languidly to his full height, and bowed, Deirdre knew not mockingly, or no, and murmured: “You are hardly insulted, my dear Deirdre, unless to
be loved, and desired, is an insult.” These coarse words uttered, I am constrained to say, with all the elegance, and chill dignity, of which the son of a heathen prince might sometimes be capable.

  THESE BRIEF VIGNETTES, constituting, as it were, a look into the future subsequent to that historic April Sunday, would not, I assume, greatly offend either the reader, or the authoress, were they more fully developed: yet my duty lies elsewhere; and I cannot any longer, in all conscience, forestall it.

  That I, as the narrator, am not to blame for the sordidness of this particular enterprise, and that the sophisticated reader well comprehends this fact, does very little, I confess, to alleviate my sense of both revulsion, and guilt. Nor does the fact that, in seeking to illumine the duplicitous ways by which the eldest Zinn girl, Constance Philippa, alter’d herself, or was alter’d, into the outlaw Philippe Fox, I freely—nay, proudly—confess myself I am ignorant of all detail, and wish to remain so. For is not the artist, as I have argued earlier, obliged to serve the higher moral truths, in his or her craft? Is he not obliged to better the world, and not merely transcribe it?

  Hard truths! A taxing mission! Yet, following the meritorious example of Our Saviour Himself, do we inhabit this vale of tears merely out of happenstance; or for a decided purpose?

  Thus, I am wildly agitated, and have been so for many hours: indeed, when my thoughts veer to this subject, I am half tempted to abandon my chronicle, even as it nears its consummation, after so many hundreds of meticulously wrought pages, and so many “serene sweetnesses alternating with the Tempest’s pranks”—to quote Mrs. Martyn. On the one hand, I have determined to record the truth, and naught but the truth; on the other, I shrink from appearing to offer, to the reader of refined sensibility, an obscene document. (And, too, I am heartsick, at the distinct possibility, that, amidst my readership, there may well be, here and there, those persons of the masculine gender, who, lacking an intrinsic purity of character, may, by laborious effort, and much unseemly exercise of the lower ranges of the imagination, summon forth a prurient gratification, from these hapless pages!)