A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates Page A

nor did it help that Mr. and Mrs. Zinn so abruptly made their decision to adopt the orphan, and to bring her home to the Octagonal House, that she would, of a sudden, have not merely a family, but four sisters! Nor did it help that the child herself, far from exhibiting gratitude, and smiling in response to the Zinns’ overtures, sullenly thrust her fingers into her mouth, and shrank from all caresses like a frightened animal, and appeared to have gone mute, out of stubbornness as well as natural grief.
    â€œWhy, this Deirdre is naught but a half-drowned river rat!” Malvinia exclaimed, to her sisters, out of earshot of Mr. and Mrs. Zinn. “And we are to be expected to take her to our bosoms, to love her, as if she were one of us?”
    â€œIt is a rather grim prospect,” Constance Philippa said, drawing herself stiffly up, to her full height, “yet, I suppose, we can rise to the challenge: for it would hardly do, you know, to oppose Father and Mother.”
    Samantha, then but eleven years of age, thought it most unfair that she should be forced to share a bedchamber with Deirdre: for Deirdre looked, Samantha said, like a wild creature that might bite; Octavia, ever the sensible one, bade them all hush, for it would not be their fancy, as to whether Deirdre was welcome or not, in the household: “She is our sister now, and will henceforth be known as one of our family,” declared Octavia, in a forthright tone, “and that, I am bound to say, is that.”
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    IT MAY HAVE done some good, that Mr. Zinn spoke quietly to the sisters, each in turn, to assure them that they would not be a whit less loved, as a consequence of having a new sister: but, in truth, the more loved, as Deirdre grew adjusted to her surroundings, and able to return their affections. “And you must speak of her as your sister, ” Mr. Zinn cautioned, “and never by any other rude term, as adopted sister: for I am your father, and would have it so, and it would be very, very wicked of you, to disobey.”
    Thus, for a spell of some four or five months, even the reluctant Malvinia came round, and determined that she would acquit herself blamelessly, and lavish upon the dumb creature so generous a store of affection, she would be incapable of resisting!—volunteering to teach Deirdre those difficult skills of embroidery, and needlepoint, and cross-stitching, which she had either not been taught by Mrs. Bonner, or had forgotten, as a consequence of her great loss; and to instruct her, in somewhat awkward fashion, in china-painting, and the construction of wax flowers, “phantom” leaves, Valentines, and feather fans. Malvinia’s voice being so melodious, and her manner so compellingly dramatic, when she chose to make it so, it was natural that she, and not the other sisters, should read aloud to poor Deirdre, from out that wonderful assortment of children’s books in the Zinns’ parlor: Aunt Patty’s Scrapbag, and Polly Peablossom’s Wedding, and Blanche of the Brandywine, and Knickerbocker’s History of New York (in particular, the part in which St. Nicholas travels through the sky in a wagon), and Pickwick Papers, and A Treasury of Riddles, and The Song of Hiawatha, and many a volume of poesy, by Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Polefax, Mrs. Darley, and divers others.
    Alas, very little seemed to move Deirdre, or to rouse her from her melancholy quietude, no matter how thrillingly Malvinia read, and recited, and emoted, with as much spirit, as if she were addressing a worthy audience!
    Yet Malvinia prevailed, as much out of willfulness, perhaps, as out of genuine affection, and made an effort to teach her new sister those parlor games she herself excelled in: Pam-Loo, and Boston, and Puss- in-the-Corner, and Snip, Snap, Snore ’Em, and cribbage, and checkers, and Old Maid, and Goff, and Stir-the-Mush: all this, with very little visible success, for tho’ Deirdre oft surprised the