A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates Read Free Book Online

“Malvinia! You forget yourself.”
    Yet Malvinia continued, briefly meeting Deirdre’s childlike gray gaze (in which simple hurt had not yet begun to be o’ercome by reproach ): “Yes, I have thought long upon the subject, and have come to the conclusion that the origin of our unhappiness—for we are unhappy, tho’ we are Zinns!—lies in our impoverishment. For, only consider,” the bold young lady said, lowering her voice, and now leaning toward those three sisters whom, it is to be supposed, she considered her true sisters, “only consider, how, almost alone in Bloodsmoor, amidst so many excellent families, we are forced to a fortnightly wash!—with the shameful result, that all the households know the exact limits of the Zinns’ changes of clothing.”
    Constance Philippa sighed loudly, and fanned her warm face with her fancywork, having mislaid, or forgotten, her fan, and said: “Malvinia, I cannot tolerate this subject any further, from you: and you know that Mother has forbidden it.”
    Octavia’s plump cheeks now resembled lovely cream-hued peonies, upon whose petals a scarlet blush had just begun to bloom, for this warm-hearted young lady was most distressed, both that the outlaw topic was introduced, and that Deirdre had been injured—albeit quite innocently, and, as it were, only in passing. Thus she said in a flurried voice: “It is an unspeakable subject, to bring up at this time, and in this wondrous place, after the Kidde­masters’ great generosity to us!—a magnificent tea in honor of Constance Philippa, and, too, in honor of Father, that his candidacy to the Society is being considered so seriously. Nay, it is an impossible subject: we will not hear of it!”
    â€œThe Gilpins and the Martineaus and the Ormonds, and many another household, do their linen each quarter-year,” Malvinia said boldly, “and it is hardly a secret, that the Broomes, tho’ once poor, have, as a consequence of the railroads, I believe, enough wealth, and enough good linen, to do but a half-year wash: or so it is whisper’d. And the Whittons, and the Millers, and the house of Du Pont de Nemours, and—”
    â€œHush, Malvinia!” Octavia said. Her moist startl’d eyes were turned upward to the great house, not one hundred yards away; and then to poor Deirdre, who continued to sit, stiffened, and blankly staring, at the floorboards of the gazebo, her crochet hook now stilled in her hands. “Hush, hush, we will not hear of it, how you would injure Father if he knew, and how you injure us, with your cruel utterances! Nay, hush, we will not hear!”
    â€œ Four Zinn sisters, and, indeed, the talk of the Valley, as ’twas: and then five, ” Malvinia said, most impulsively, “which is of course a credit to Mother and Father, and not to be questioned, or ridiculed. Nay, I will not hush, I will speak, there is no stranger near, not anyone who might pretend to be surprised, by anything that is said. Indeed—”
    Constance Philippa, now tugging with unconscious force, and vexation, at the fashionably tight sleeves of her piqué dress, interrupted forcibly to say: “You are correct, Malvinia; and yet you are improper. And so—do as Octavia and I, your elder sisters, say, and pray be still. ”
    There then ensured some moments of ill-natured silence, during which, naught was to be heard, save the distant lowing of a cow; and the melodic queries of the bright-feather’d creatures in the stately elms nearby. Octavia broke the quiet with nervous chatter, the which was greeted with relief, tho’, perhaps, scant attention: “The blackberry tea as well—I thought quite successful—and the fresh honey, from Uncle Rhinelander’s hives—and—and—I must say, Constance Philippa, I do not truly think Delphine Marti­neau is to be censored for her gaiety and high spirits