Free A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

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 appetite, 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