A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates

“Shall I be known as the most beautiful of the Zinn girls?—nay, the most beautiful of all the girls of Bloodsmoor?”
    The flawless skin fairly glowed, in assent; the blue eyes shone in certitude; the quick smile was dazzling to see! Yet the impetuous Malvinia could not resist a further question: “Shall I be Father’s favorite, throughout his life, and mine?”
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    IT WILL BE no surprise to the reader that the arrival of the orphan-child, Deirdre (then known pityingly as Deirdre Bonner), while distressing in varied ways to the other sisters, was most distressing to Malvinia: not simply because the Zinns were “poor,” in comparison to their relatives, and to the important Bloodsmoor families, but because, alas, it did seem, for a time at least, that John Quincy Zinn felt o’ermuch affection (however tempered by his natural absentmindedness of manner) for the orphan, the which inevitably lessened his affection, or, at least, his attention, for Malvinia.
    â€œI cannot think why Father dotes upon her,” the affronted Malvinia exclaimed, “nay, I cannot even think why he gazes upon her: for is she not ugly? Is she not sullen? Is she not pitiable? Is she not common? ”
    Little Deirdre Bonner had suffered the untimely deaths of both parents, within a scant fortnight of each other, of the dreaded typhoid: and there had been worry, for a time, that she would succumb as well, less to illness itself as to a most pathetic abandonment of life. She had wept very little, neighbors attested; she was so bereft, even tears failed her—thus believed Mrs. Hewett, the good wife of Reverend Hewett, who had taken for her particular charity, amongst the impoverished and unfortunate in the village, this pitiable little orphan. (All the Bloodsmoor ladies, naturally including the Kidde­masters, and Mrs. Zinn, ventured forth as many times as thrice weekly, by carriage, to the homes of the poor, bringing to them such necessities of life as warm clothing, cast-off parasols, and the coarser varieties of food, without which these unhappy wretches would doubtless have expired, over the cruel winter in particular. Of the Zinn girls, only Octavia took heartfelt pleasure in these visits: the others, to their shame, sulked and fretted, and oft refused to smile, shown into an airless and dim-lit cottage of modest proportions, or forced to observe, at rather too close a range, a sickly mewling babe at his mother’s breast. “That the poor are so dull, and so tiresome, and, I am sorry to say, so boring, is surely not their fault,” Malvinia once declared, her blue eyes flashing, “yet, as it is not ours, why must we suffer for it?”)
    The woeful little orphan Deirdre was not, however, of an impoverished family: for Mr. Bonner had been employed as a manager at a textiles factory some miles downriver (a factory owned by Mr. Clement Whitton, an uncle of Godfrey Kidde­master’s, in truth), and Mrs. Bonner had, within the limits necessitated by her modest social station, participated in church activities, at Trinity Episcopal Church, in which, at infrequent times, she might have been in the company of Mrs. John Quincy Zinn, tho’ Mrs. Zinn had no clear recollection of the unhappy woman, and was certain that they had never exchanged a word. Twice-yearly, at Christmas, and in midsummer, great Kidde­master Hall was thrown open to local residents above a social rank, and it is to be supposed that the Bonners were included in this general invitation: but, again, no one had any recollection of them, and certain of the Kidde­masters—Edwina in particular—shunned these gatherings, for the very jolliness of such persons, wandering agape about the Hall, and eating and drinking all they could, was most distressing, and raised unfortunate thoughts about the wisdom of Mr. Jefferson, and the nature of the American Democracy generally.
    Thus, no one claimed to know the Bonners;