A Bloodsmoor Romance (89 page)

Thus Mrs. Rumford's abash'd docility, in the light of her husband's natural displeasure; nor did the young woman fail to observe the predicament of the once-headstrong Delphine Martineau, who, having protested her husband's drinking, gambling, and “consorting with low personages,” was said now to be confined to a single chamber of her husband's ancestral house, and under a physician's close ministration, that her
hysteria,
and her
imagin'd fancies,
should not have a deleterious effect upon her young children, or besmirch the noble name of Ormond, her husband's family. And there was the example, too, of Cousin Rowena Kale, sent back penniless to her father's house, as a consequence of some disagreement, involving the treatment, or mistreatment, of her children: the unhappy woman, having incurred the displeasure of her lawfully wed husband, hardly failing, now, to incur an equivalent displeasure, on the part of her father, all the more that her dowry was “squander'd,” and “thrown down a rat hole,” with nothing to show for it. And, I am sorry to say, there were other whisper'd tales, which shall have no place in this narrative, partaking, as all such prattle does, of shallow gossip: and casting an unpleasant shadow upon that holy institution, marriage, in which God binds man and wife as
one
flesh, and
one
spirit.

So it is fully to Octavia's credit, that she submitted to Mr. Rumford's divers requests, and did not demur, even when she suffered some physical discomfort, and attacks of irrational panic, as a consequence of the tightening of the noose about her tender throat: nay, she did not allow her mind to roam that freely, that
complaint
might be an option. Nor did she object, when, after a passage of some weeks, Mr. Rumford of a sudden requested that
she,
whilst still blinded by the comely hood, lower the noose about
his
head, and tighten it about
his
neck.

I cannot say how frequently this divergence from custom occurr'd, through that long drear winter, when the frigid winds from Canada howl'd, and the solar orb shone but faintly, and Little Godfrey made the servants sigh with fond exasperation, wanting now to be dressed for the chill out-of-doors, and now to be undressed, that he might remain indoors: nor can I say, with any degree of certitude, why it was that Mr. Rumford fell into the habit of requesting, from his complaisant mate, a gradual
increase
in the degree of tension, which the noose exerted upon his throat. Yet it was so; and to
his
sorrow, and
her
grief!

“Tighter,” Mr. Rumford would ofttimes pant, in the midst of his strenuous labors, “—and yet tighter—and
yet tighter,
Mrs. Rumford—” until his words were garbled, and his breath turned shrill and wheezing, and not even his fond wife might determine what he said, but only divine, by intuition's aid, his desire. If, out of exhaustion, or a fear for Mr. Rumford's safety, Octavia allowed the noose to slacken, before the crucial moment, she earned a sharp rebuke, and, not infrequently, a chastising pinch or twist of her flesh, which would betray a considerable redness, by the morn's light. “Tighter—tighter—and yet tighter, Mrs. Rumford—else I shall be displeased!”—so Mr. Rumford commanded; and Octavia grew habituated in her obedience, sometimes pulling both ends of the silken cord, in a simple fashion, and sometimes, by Mr. Rumford's express desire, evidently “choking” him by a kind of
twisting,
and
tightening,
procedure, the which, of course, she could not see, her vision being annihilated, by the hood.

And so it came about, upon that Palm Sunday eve, that, Mr. Rumford's exhortations to his wife being to
tighten,
and yet further
tighten,
the noose, she unthinkingly obeyed: her thoughts drifting free, it might have been, to glance in upon the slumbering Little Godfrey, in the nursery; or to shed a quiet tear o'er the elfin grave of Baby Sarah; or to ponder upon those mysteries of Free Will, Determinism, and Grace, as expounded by the Reverend Silas Hewett from out the pulpit of Trinity Church: this gentleman of the Protestant cloth now well into his tenth decade, and sadly deaf, yet, for all that, as vigorous and clear-minded an orator, as might be found anywhere in the land. Or, her fond thoughts might circle about Mr. Zinn, the proud inventor of the “electric chair”; and, more recently, a toothbrush operated by a small crank, for remarkable efficiency, in removing tartar from the teeth. (Mr. Zinn was now deeply immers'd in a project, of a secret nature, in conjunction with a branch of the Du Pont organization, whereby the demands of Captain Alfred Mahan of the United States Navy for more efficient torpedoes might be satisfied—Captain Mahan being that eloquent warrior who, in his numerous books, argued for the forcible extension of the American nation, not only to those small, troubled countries, Cuba and Hawaii, but throughout the hemisphere, and, God willing, throughout the world.) Or, her thoughts might touch upon the pathos of her lost sisters, which a harsher judgment might have called
damn'd:
yet, withal, such was her sweetly affectionate nature, she could not resist suffering a pang of remorse, that Malvinia was not still her bedmate; or that Samantha had so cruelly betrayed the parental hearth, with no word of farewell, and no express'd concern, that she might ever glimpse her belovèd nephew again, in this world. . . .

So, the while her adoring spouse toiled manfully, in the
unitary act,
urging her, by mutterings, grunts, and impatient groans, to tighten the noose, and yet still further tighten it, Octavia's thoughts, in all maiden innocence, drifted hither and yon: and it is perhaps not altogether surprising that, habituated as she was to these marital customs, she should have too vigorously complied with his command—or, it may have been, a simple misinterpretation ensued, as a consequence of which Mr. Rumford of a sudden ceased his
toil:
and, alas!—ceased his
breathing!

Reader, you may well imagine the affrighted wife's response, when, sensing something amiss, or, in any case, irregular, in the proceedings, she dared—shyly, and hesitantly—to draw off the hood from her head, in order to investigate the situation (Mr. Rumford having not only ceased his exertions, but fallen ominously silent, upon her breast), she saw, with amazed eyes, the countenance of her husband so
empurpled,
and
contorted,
and the eyes so hideously
bulging,
that she gave a shriek of horror, as if not recognizing him!—and, a scant moment later, yet another shriek, in her comprehension of the poor man's expiration!

For, indeed, in this wise Mr. Lucius Rumford came to his end: and I count it a sign of God's especial mercy, toward His most cherished children, that Octavia, in her grief, and the precariousness of her health, sank at once into a swoon—
and was never to clearly recall the precise circumstances of Mr. Rumford's death.

SIXTY-SEVEN

O
f the death by hideous drowning, of that golden-tress'd child Little Godfrey, upon a mellifluous midsummer's day, at Kidde­master Hall, ah!—I have neither the words, nor the corporeal strength, to speak.

Nay—I have not the
heart.

Know only that the dread event occurred but a scant year after the demise of Mr. Rumford, the grieving widow persisting in her mourning attire, but prepared to bend, I believe, to the admonitions of her mother, and her great-aunt, and divers other ladies of the neighborhood, that she set aside her widow's raiment, and wear again the colorful hues of life, and of joy: bearing in mind (as, doubtless, any young widow must bear in mind, who is also a mother) that it is now her
children
for whom she must live; and not her
spouse.

Too cruel—too bitter!

The loss of any minikin innocent: but the loss of
this
innocent!

Nay, I cannot speak, for the task is too oppressive, the sorrow too great. In transcribing my
Romance,
I had certainly known that
Pathos
and
Heartbreak
could not be skirted: but, O Reader, I had not known that the chronicle would swerve so pitilessly toward the
Tragic,
and tax my heart so enormously. Tho' we are told by the eminent poetess Miss Jane Woolsey that “
Stars
are the angels' alphabet,/ Who write in light above,/ Full many a pure and gentle thought/ Of holiness and love”—it is far, far different here below, with those of us who aspire to the patient and fearless recording of an
Earthly
truth!—ah, how greatly, how cruelly different!

For, in this instance, I am obliged to speak of an event so charg'd with horror, it can scarce be contemplated by the sane mind, let alone given adequate voice: the loss of a child.

My feeble energies being so drained, and my aging eyes so brimmed with tears, I can scarce see this page, or the slow sad halting motions of my quill pen, I must turn to the enduring wisdom of poesy, in order that the reader might comprehend, even dimly, the
loss
which poor Octavia must endure. In the words of the Reverend Hargreave Tupper, from out of his popular collection,
Proverbial Philosophy
—

A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger

of peace, and love;

A resting-place for innocence on earth; a link between

angels and men.

And how much truer this declaration must be seen to be, pertaining to the robust, tireless, bright-countenanc'd, and gloriously high-spirited
Little Godfrey!

Nay, I cannot force myself to speak, save in the most circuitous of ways: the reader being obliged to envision for himself a scene very much similar to that with which this history began, back in September of 1879 (ah,
that
ill-omen'd day!), on the beauteous grassy lawn that sloped so gracefully from the rear terrace of Kidde­master Hall, to the peaceable river some hundreds of yards below. You will recall the gazebo, in which the sisters sat, in their pretty Sunday dresses: that very gazebo (alter'd not a whit) from which the uncouth Deirdre fled—to her shame, and her destruction! You will recall, so picturesquely in the near-distance, a most elegant rose garden, and a wisteria garden, and fields of natural sere grasses and ornamental rushes: you will recall, perhaps, the old stone wishing well.

Alas, indeed:
the old stone wishing well.

For it was in these dank, lightless, sepulchral waters, that, trapped in the embrace of the crazed Pip, our dear Little Godfrey met his end.

But how to articulate, how to record, the elements of that flailing, choking, sputtering,
furious
death!

And the incalculable ironies of the death: in that, the worrisome monkey having mistaken Little Godfrey's
playfulness,
for something more
severe,
he reached out with his surprisingly long, and surprisingly muscular, arms, to seize the smiling child,
and pull him into the well with himself.

All this being, as the reader can grasp, naught but a misunderstanding on Pip's part, if we allow that the furry little creature might have been capable of “understanding,” in any case. For such was his nervous temperament, and the superficiality of his animal shrewdness, that he mistook Little Godfrey's prank, in snatching him from the terrace (where, beggar that he was, by preening and cajoling, he had succeeded in winning from Octavia, and Miss Narcissa Gilpin, and one or another of the ladies, some dainty morsels of Bavarian cream cake), and bearing him to the wishing well, and gaily tossing him o'er the rough-stoned rim, for an act of
cruel mischief,
rather than the simple, high-spirited, innocent act of
child's play,
that it was.

Alas, I am scarce able to continue!

For, quite apart from the obscene, unspeakable, piteous spectacle, of
angel-child
and
mere beast,
drowning in an embrace, in those waters of the Kidde­masters' wishing well which, by tradition, had no practicable function, other than that of the ornamental, and the diversionary, and (may God save us!), the
whimsical:
quite apart from the horror in itself, which was witnessed not only by the ladies at their tea, but by tiny
Lucius Quincy
as well, on his mother's lap (that dear child being now almost twelve months of age, and, apart from some small respiratory weakness, and an exaggerated timidity in the presence of his boisterous, but adoring, elder brother, grown to a reasonable size—the recipient of his mother's bountiful love, as the puniest weed-flower partakes, with as much glory as the rose, of the solar beneficence): quite apart from the deleterious effect the event was to have, upon the already weakening constitution of Great-Aunt Edwina—we have, alas, the hideous irony, that Mrs. Rumford was being admonished,
up to the very moment of Little Godfrey's prank,
by the elder ladies, for her excessive grief, and her prolongation of mourning, which, they averred, “Mr. Rumford himself must surely have become uneasy with, in his Heavenly abode”! Gently, with infinite tact and compassion, and regard for the sanctity of Christian grief, the young widow was being admonished: but admonished she
was:
and urged not only to leave off mourning, and to partake more wholesomely in the pleasures of this earth (amongst which must surely be included, the delicious Bavarian cream cake, and the walnut tortes, and the Swiss chocolate almond ladyfingers, being served at the tea), but
to rejoice in her two beautiful babes!

Nay, the irony is too bitter: I am enfeebl'd, and can continue but for another scant page.

To say only that, despite the smiling, laughing, and chattering congeniality of the scene, and the ambrosiacal taste of the cakes, tortes, and ladyfingers, which, with reluctant appetite, she had acquiesced in nibbling; despite the idyllic beauty of the midsummer day, and that dreamlike indescribable serenity, of the Kidde­master estate—indeed, of all that great family possessed; despite the gradually increasing strength, which hours of daily prayer, and immersion in the Holy Book, were allotting her—despite all this, Reader, Octavia's maternal intuition was such that, she seemed to know, before the crazed monkey had pulled her son into the well with him, before, even, Little Godfrey had toss'd the creature over the side!—whilst, in fact, the exuberant imp was still gladdening the afternoon with his shouting laughter, and
not a thing appeared to be amiss,
the monkey's terrified screeches being but a commonplace, when Little Godfrey chose to play with him: yet her mother's quickened instinct was such, she
knew
something terrible was going to happen: and, tho' she willed herself to set the warm weight of little Lucius Quincy on his grandmother's ample lap, that she might, gathering her skirts, run to the well, and divert the catastrophe,
she found that she was paralyzed, and could not move—nay, not a muscle!—not an eyelid!—nor could she call out, that one of the servants might be alerted, and save her son, from his watery fate!