A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

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.”
    â€œThat is cruel,” Octavia feebly objected, “that is not in the spirit of the Zinns, Malvinia—”
    â€œIt 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.
    After some awkward moments, during which the pale Deirdre continued to gaze into Octavia’s eyes, and to squeeze her unresisting hands, the younger sister ventured, in her low, whispery voice, this decidedly peculiar statement: that she had comprehended, of a sudden, the worry that so darkly abided in Octavia’s heart, and “felt compelled” to hurry to her, to comfort her with the wisdom that, much great suffering being in store for her, in the years to come, it would be well for her, and surely practical, to rejoice now, and to leave sorrow for later.
    â€œA cruel—nay, a hideous—comfort!” Octavia proclaimed, afterward, to the sympathetic Malvinia; “and the malevolent chill of the creature’s hands! Though I suppose she meant well; and acted out of a compulsion of generosity, unskill’d in her.”
    â€œGenerosity!” Malvinia laughed, with infinite scorn. “Nay, I should term it the reverse; and only pray that she should not undertake such a pretense with me, and seek to squeeze my hands!”

SIX
    Since memory’s birth, no year but took
    Something the heart held dear;
    Each page of life on which we look,
    Is blotted with a tear.
    â€”MRS. S. T. MARTYN
    A las, impetuous Malvinia!—“The Rose of the Kidde­master Garden,” as all of Bloodsmoor was wont to call her, to the silent dismay of her less comely sisters—for it was a careless attitude of her own, pertaining to Deirdre, that helped precipitate the tragic mischance to come.
    Bitter is this ironical fact; yet