The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates

qualified to analyze the character of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, of whom Josiah sometimes reminds me. A young man of deep-smoldering passion overcome by too-cerebral meditations; a young man of an “elevated” family, not at ease in society; a young man set upon a course of destiny—with no knowledge of what his destiny must be.
    Since Augustus Slade had accepted the suit of Dabney Bayard for Annabel’s hand, effectively cutting off, at the knees, a small battalion of suitors about to declare themselves, Josiah had behaved strangely—capriciously. Yet, when Annabel approached him with her tentative query, he seemed stiff with her, and evasive: “You must follow your heart, Annabel. And Father has said ‘yes’—it can only be up to you, to persevere in the engagement.”
    Persevere in the engagement! Annabel laughed, somewhat hurt; as if marrying Dabney Bayard were some sort of military campaign.
    Though Josiah was five years older than Annabel, and had not always had much time for his sister while they were growing up, he had always been fond of her, and protective; if by nature blunt-mannered, and inclined to impatience; yet it had always seemed to Annabel, that Josiah loved her dearly. (As he loved, or tried to love, their ever-restless and intrusive young cousin Todd, now eleven years old.) But when Annabel tried to take Josiah’s hands in hers—(ah! how large they were, how strong and big-boned)—he drew away with a frown; and when she begged him to have no secrets from her, as when they were children, he said, with a vexed sort of smile, “But Annabel, you must realize—we are children no longer.”
     
    WHILE THE SLADES’ numerous guests made their festive way from room to room upstairs, Annabel, Josiah, and Dabney Bayard continued to stand rather awkwardly before an empty fireplace, in one of the first-floor drawing rooms; no recent ashes littered this empty space, but rather some very fine bones, that had dried to splinters. Out of desperation Dabney said, “Your grandfather Winslow is the most remarkable man—it’s true, as everyone says. And he has been so generous . . .” Annabel agreed; but Josiah only grunted in reply, as if the inane remark did not warrant a serious response.
    Surreptitiously Annabel poked her brother in the ribs. She cast a sidelong glance at him, as if to implore Please don’t be rude. Don’t ruin this happy day.
    Six weeks before her wedding, Annabel Slade had never looked more beautiful, with her skin slightly heated, and her violet-blue eyes moist, and her lower lip trembling with emotion. For this Sunday brunch at the “old Craven house”—soon to be the “honeymoon cottage” of the young people—she was wearing a new dress of cream-colored crepe de chine in the “Fluffy Ruffles” fashion of the day; her lavishly feathered “picture” hat, of a hue matching her dress, was perched atop the mass of her honey-brown pompadour, with a bandeau secured beneath the crown for more height. In her shimmering cascade of ruffles, that trembled with her every intake of breath, Annabel struck the eye as the very emblem of feminine loveliness—of feminine mystery. For why was it, so adored a young lady, so clearly blessed a young lady, stood between her fiancé and her brother, her gaze downcast, and her forehead lined with worry?
    It would have taken a more perceptive observer even than Josiah, to note that Annabel was distracted, and her thoughts elsewhere; it may have been, the warning hiss Annabel! Annabel! could just faintly be heard, from the winter-ravaged, as yet untended, flower beds at the rear of the house.
    And it may have been, Annabel’s thoughts were moving surreptitiously to the memory of a hand-sickle wickedly glinting in the sun—fresh-cut wildflowers and grasses fallen into a heap, soon to rot—the memory of a bold grasp of her hand, and a yet bolder kiss on the back of her hand— chère mademoiselle! How kind you are! A rare quality in ladies of your