A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates

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