Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  But all seemed well in the bed-chamber, though Abigail continued to feel some uneasiness at the lushly decorated room into which Cousin Georgina had put her: and at a queer undefined agitation of the air, which may have been the consequence of ill-fitting windows, or mismatched floorboards underfoot, belied by the gaily elegant French carpets, and, indeed, by the lavish furnishings on all sides. Yet her mother’s heart was consoled by the depth and peaceableness of her baby’s slumber, and by the perfection,—ah, would it never fail to pierce her heart, as if taking her unawares?—of his tiny being. “Why, then, sweet Charleton, if you are undisturbed, I am quite the fool to stir up a fuss,” Abigail whispered. For some fond moments she stood gazing into the crib, taking note of the infant’s tiny rosebud of a mouth (which looked to her as if, damply pursed, it awaited a stealthy kiss); and the near-imperceptible quivering of his eyelids (did he dream?—did he, perhaps, dream of her,—and of his happiness at her breast?); and the ravishingly charming way in which his hands, loosely shaped into “fists,” rested on the white eiderdown coverlet. Though knowing herself foolishly indulgent, she could not resist brushing a fair silky curl from the baby’s forehead; and leaning as gently as possible over the crib, to impart a ghostly kiss upon that same brow. That Mrs. Abigail Whimbrel doted overmuch upon Charleton Hendrick Whimbrel II (named for his paternal grandfather, the distinguished General Whimbrel of the Patriots’ War of 1837) was a consequence of the fact that this youngest of the Whimbrels’ several children would be the last child God would entrust to her care: for so her family physician had told her, and she knew it must be so. Ah, would it not be afterward adjudged an act of singular imprudence, to have brought the baby to troubled Glen Mawr Manor—where, it took no very prescient imagination to perceive, neither mother nor baby was entirely wished-for at the present time.

  “We shall not be here long, and Cousin Georgina shall be rid of us,—poor unhappy creature!” Abigail murmured aloud, with more forcefulness than she had intended: for, of a sudden, little Charleton opened wide his liquid-blue eyes, and appeared, for an instant, to stare up at her. Did he truly wake?—or was he yet safely asleep? Ah, God’s most exquisite little angel, entrusted to a mere mortal’s care—! With relief Abigail determined that he had not actually awakened, which was, of course, altogether to the good: for, when he had cried and “carried on” earlier in the day, shortly after their arrival at the Manor, Cousin Georgina had not been charmed: informing Abigail somewhat needlessly that Glen Mawr was ordinarily peaceful,—nay, perfectly silent—and that the clamor of a baby’s angry wailing was distinctly out of place. Startled, yet laughingly, Abigail had protested that little Charleton’s crying was scarcely an expression of anger, but only of colicky discomfort, and upset at unfamiliar surroundings,—quite natural, in fact, in a baby of his tender months. Georgina seemingly attended to her words with courtesy; yet, a minute later, she reiterated her own observation, in a grave voice, adding that the men should dislike it in particular, as any sort of noise interfered with concentration. Seeing Abigail’s startled look, perhaps, Georgina at once bethought herself, and amended that Uncle Simon Esdras should not like it,—“being very sensitive of late to undue distractions and interruptions that threaten progress on his Treatise.” A faint rubescent flush to the elder woman’s cheeks, at her innocent, yet piteous, “slip of the tongue,” and a stiffening of her mouth, warned Abigail against attempting commiseration at this awkward moment.

  “It is altogether natural that poor Georgina ‘feels’ her father’s presence, as if he were still alive,” Abigail observed, with a small frisson, “—for, indeed, at Glen Mawr, it does seem the case that the ‘great man’ has but stepped out of the room, and will shortly be back!”

  Little Charleton again stirred, and made a whimpering, mewing sound; and, in some agitation, Abigail stroked his warm brow yet again, and adjusted the coverlet, and his tiny pillow; and essayed to comfort him with a familiar lullaby of the nursery, for, alas, he must not begin to cry so quickly!—

  Little Baby Bunting

  Father’s gone ahunting

  Gone to get a new fur skin

  To wrap the Baby Bunting in!

  Little Baby Bunting

  Father’s gone ahunting . . .

  For some precarious seconds it seemed he might wake, and throw himself into a spasm of wailing: for was Abigail not, despite her maternal solicitude and boundless love, a most fearsome giantess in his vision?

  Fortunately, however, he did lapse into sleep: and the relieved mother returned to her bed, with the intention of reading, as sleep, for her, now seemed cruelly distant: and perhaps not desirable. Thus it was, she took up her Bible, and essayed to read, that her soul might be calmed; and the disagreeable confusion of her thoughts, of but a few minutes previous, quelled. Yet she halfway wondered whether, in truth, those thoughts had been hers at all; or some queer product of her sojourn here, in this intimidating guest room,—the “General’s Room,” it was known as, or the “Honeymoon Room”—where Cousin Georgina had insisted she must stay, as it was the “only decent room kept in readiness for visitors.” She had, she feared, insulted her cousin by her initial response to it, in protesting that it was far too grand, and too formal, and, she knew not why, too chill a space, for her to inhabit alone. Might she and Georgina not share a bed,—or, at the very least, a bed-chamber for the night—as they had done upon several occasions in their girlhood? But this wistful query was seemingly not heard.

  All incongruously, and, it seemed, with not the faintest trace of mockery or sarcasm, Georgina said of a sudden: “Dear Cousin, I cannot wonder that you are disappointed in us,—that you find our way of life at the Manor much reduced from what it was. While Father lived this house too lived: his step, his voice,—nay, his very breath—reverberated throughout. But, ah!—no more of that; for I see by your frown that I am being morbid. And poor Georgina, poor spinster, is forbidden to be morbid, by Dr. Hatch himself. Yet it seems naught but ‘plain dealing,’ to observe that we are, since that catastrophe of late March, an etiolated sort of household, at best: three sisters in stunned mourning, and a bachelor uncle so bemazed, I fear, by his brother’s death, he has yet to comprehend its import. No, no, dear Abigail,” Georgina said, turning stiffly aside, as if she feared a precipitous embrace, and again speaking with puzzling incongruity,—her thoughts, it seemed, hopping hither and yon: “we are obliged to be frugal now at Glen Mawr, as, I am told, Father’s finances were left in a confused state; and it will be many a month, or year, before we are on an ‘even keel’ once again. We must be humble. Thérèse and Perdita quite understand, for they are not,—praise God, they have never been—spoiled girls; and Uncle Simon shall be made to understand. It is not our lot, you see, to dissipate our income in idle pleasures,—to throw the Manor open to visitors, and relatives up and down the pike,—though of course, being hospitable, we should like very much to do so. Ah, would I were a writer of romances, and a heroine of the lending library, and not, as Fate would have it, a mere poetess!—though, it seems,” Georgina said, with a bemused twist of her lips, “I am scarcely that, any longer.”

  It is not to be wondered at that Abigail found herself quite nonplussed at this trailing, yet lugubrious speech: in truth silenced, with as much dispatch, as if her elder cousin had rudely bade her be still. (“Why, I had sought only to share her bedroom for the night,” poor Abigail, stung, inwardly murmured, “and have been served a stern admonition not to expect luxury!”)

  AS IT WAS the custom for most of the members of Abigail’s family, excepting of course the very youngest children, to read the Bible twice daily, either in the company of others or alone, it is perhaps comprehensible that her mind sometimes drifted from Holy Writ to attach itself to matters of a profane nature: yet this proclivity seemed the more emphatic, and the more irresistible, as Mrs. Whimbrel lay stiffly propped up with pillows, in her lonely bed,—alas, many miles from her home in Contracoeur and her belovèd Mr. Whimbrel—and essayed to read, with a sile
nt shaping of her lips, from the Epistles of John. Ah, how vexing!—how nettlesome! For, though the spacious bed-chamber was silent save for the mournful ticking of a pendulum clock on the mantel and the low persistent murmurousness of the wind against the several windows, she could not, it seems, attend to the Word of God: but felt her thoughts urge themselves in another direction, very like a willful horse straining at the bit.

  Her attention was drawn to the facing mirror, which, though lightly frosted in bronze, displayed with some clarity both herself and her bed, and the extraordinary trompe l’oeil mural by Fairfax Eakins that had been commissioned by Phillips Goode Kilgarvan some decades previous and painted directly on the wall and a portion of the ceiling. A small golden plaque announced the title “The Virgin in the Rose-Bower,” and Abigail Whimbrel was capable of discerning certain religious elements and motifs in it,—the Virgin, for instance, held the Christ Child somewhat awkwardly on her knee; yet, withal, she thought it a decidedly queer painting, and marred by a pagan,—or might it be Popish?—extravagance of flesh.

  Of a sudden, answering to a whim she would have been hard pressed to explain, Abigail rose from her bed, and went to the door, and laid her ear against it; and, hearing nothing, firmly bolted it. She then went to each of the tall windows, in turn, and locked them as best she could, saying to herself the while: “Albeit I am at Glen Mawr, and not in a strange inn or hotel, I know myself and Charleton unquestionably safe,—yet shall sleep the more soundly, for knowing too that the room is secured from within.”

  She then returned to her bed, and bethought herself that now, at last, she might darken the room; for nothing could possibly harm her, save the childish phantasms of sleep. As Cousin Georgina would be gravely insulted to discover the precautions she had taken, Abigail resolved to rise long before dawn and to undo all the locks and bolts,—there being little risk of her oversleeping, as Baby should stir, and fret, and cry for his first repast of the day, not long past five o’clock.

  SCARCELY HAD ABIGAIL SETTLED into an ancient mohair chair in Georgina’s drawing room, and carefully arranged her skirts and petticoats, and taken up her cup of tea,—scarcely had she exchanged greetings, and subdued smiles, with her young cousins Thérèse and Perdita (who had come downstairs to tea, it appeared, with timid reluctance, clad in unflattering dresses of black mousseline, with drooping collars, loose sashes, and distinctly tattered hems),—when Georgina essayed to apologize for the fact that Abigail and her baby had been met at the train station by one of the Manor servants only, and not by Georgina herself, or Simon Esdras: the excuse coolly offered, that they were otherwise employed. To this “apology” that had very much the air of an affront, poor Abigail could but murmur an assent; and busied herself with her tea, and inquiries after the health of the Kilgarvans, while her eye moved about the room to take in what it could,—a portrait in oils of the late Chief Justice in his judicial robes, above the mantel, most imposing in its muscular harmonies of shadow and light; a somewhat untidy stack of books, set beside Georgina’s chair; the inert though wheezing form of a large mastiff,—Jupiter his name—lying sprawled on the carpet near Abigail’s feet, with as much agèd aplomb, as if he slept in some secluded place. Her own keen eye following Abigail’s, Georgina observed, in a low, dry, uninflected voice, that she hoped Abigail would not report back to Contracoeur “on the doubtful state of our household: for it is a fact I cannot disguise, that the servants have been fickle of late, and will get themselves dismissed. Alas as Father has said, it is the times—!”

  Abigail Whimbrel essayed some suitable reply, though feeling most perplexed: for how was it possible, Cousin Georgina seemed not to like her; or even in a way to know her? Nor did the younger sisters contribute any element of smiling freshness, or vivacity: lapsing into silence after making their dutiful,—nay, forced—replies; and gazing with brooding and melancholy eyes at the carpet. When Abigail’s sociable voice subsided, naught was heard save the ticking of a mantel clock, which struck the ear as not fully rhythmic; and the sighing, laborious breath of the old mastiff; and, distantly, from upstairs, the renewed crying of little Charleton. (Ah, how he had fretted on the train!—giving both Abigail and his nursemaid a great deal of pleasurable trouble. But now that he had nursed and had been put to bed for his afternoon nap, Abigail resolved that she would not run away upstairs at his bidding.)

  The subject was revived, of the abruptness of Erasmus Kilgarvan’s death,—the distinguished jurist having died in the courtroom, in full session, some six weeks previous: the which animated Georgina for a while, so that her narrow eyes shone, and a faint blush shadowed her cheeks. Yet this too ran its course; and it was with an ironical voice that Georgina concluded: “Thus you find us, his daughters. His heiresses. Left quite behind. As you see. Ah, dear Abigail, you must not judge us harshly, and frown upon us so prettily!—for we are not at all morbid; but only,—his.”

  Abigail stammeringly protested that she did not judge at all: but had come to Glen Mawr solely out of friendship, as she could imagine how heavily grief lay upon the household.

  “Grief lies upon our household,—I hope I speak for my sisters as well?—no more heavily,” Georgina flatly announced, “than might be required.”

  As no servant appeared to pass about the tea things, Thérèse lay aside her grayish tangle of crocheting, and, with an appealing sort of awkwardness, elected to do so: proffering Abigail a second cup of tea and handing about a plate of crustless sandwiches thickly smeared with butter, and salmon paste,—which, Abigail’s keen eye determined, was not overly fresh. This half-sister of Georgina’s, nearly three decades her junior, was now fourteen years of age, yet childlike in both manner and appearance: her pinched face being neither pretty nor actually plain,—her slender nose with its subtle Kilgarvan crook, and her small sweet mouth, being features of decided promise,—while her dark eyes, it almost seemed, were hooded, and sunk too deeply in their sockets. Abigail had heard that Thérèse was passionately religious, and an outstanding scholar: yet how forlorn her expression, how dim and melancholy her smile—! Nor did it contribute to her charm that her right eyelid quivered, as if she feared a harsh word, or a blow from an invisible hand: a singularly unfortunate trait in a young lady of good family.

  As to Perdita, the youngest of the sisters, and by far the most comely,—this child made so little effort to please, with scarcely a smile for her Contracoeur cousin, or more than a mumbled reply, Abigail knew not what to think. She was decidedly pretty, or more than pretty: with a heart-shaped face, and delicately curving brows, and the Kilgarvan nose, and thick-lashed eyes which, even when narrowed, gave a hint of spirited intelligence, or willfulness. Yet her air was aggrieved and sullen; her skin so pale as to suggest anemia, or green-sickness; and her lower lip swollen with pouting. (Though perhaps it was actually swollen: Abigail noted a bruise of a flavid purple, singularly unflattering, along her jaw: and scratches on the backs of both her hands. A clumsy child, along with being sullen,—prone to mishaps and falls.) Though Abigail made every effort to provoke a smile in her, and to draw her out in conversation, she stubbornly held her ground, as it were; and sat in her chair with a comical sort of formality, her backbone resolutely straight, and her head held rigid, in imitation,—Abigail supposed it must be unconscious—of her late father, who had, as all the family knew, a mania for correct posture; and much contempt for those who did not observe it.

  Abigail was startled, however, to note that, while Georgina was preoccupied in extracting from a pile of condolence cards one of especial significance she wished to show Abigail, the twelve-year-old Perdita secured two or three of the salmon sandwiches from off the tray, in a deft, covert, and, as it were, rapacious motion,—and devoured them with a greedy avidity more appropriate in a starving animal than in a charming young lady! Detected, she flashed unrepentant eyes at Abigail: yet remained stonily unsmiling: and would not warm to her cousin.

  As Georgina spoke of the gratifying number of condolence cards and letters she h
ad received since Erasmus’s funeral, Abigail took pained note of the spinster’s waxen pallor, which might have been becoming, in the fashion of the times, in a woman some years younger, or possessed of more agreeable features: but was decidedly unflattering in Georgina. Though but three years older than Abigail, Georgina gave every appearance of being a dozen years older: for her high, narrow, finely wrinkled brow was the more deeply creased when, it seemed, she was struck by a vexatious thought,—which, to judge from her manner at tea, was fairly often. At the Judge’s funeral, Abigail recalled with what stiff, numbed, yet unfailingly efficient propriety Georgina had behaved: having made most of the funeral arrangements herself, and seeing, however cursorily, to the comfort of the many visitors who had journeyed to Winterthurn to pay their final respects to Erasmus Kilgarvan. Brisk, and forthright, and coolly gracious, her eye not reddened from crying, nor her slender hand given to trembling, the “Blue Nun” had not failed at her duty, no more than she had failed,—as everyone whispered—to manage Erasmus’s household for most of her adult life: and to take on the responsibilities of mistress of Glen Mawr, after the somewhat clouded death of her father’s second wife, when Thérèse and Perdita were very young children. (Of the actual manner of death of the sickly and, it was said, unnatural Hortense Spies,—who had married the middle-aged Erasmus when scarcely more than a girl herself—Abigail knew very little: and deemed it best, as all the family counseled, not to inquire.)

  A most enigmatic portrait Miss Georgina Kilgarvan now presented to her cousin’s kindly, yet anxious, eye: her cheeks distinctly hollowed, yet her eyes possessing a mica-like glint, or glitter, that bespoke some suppressed excitation: and did she not retain, for all her air of a spinster’s stiff posture, a girlishness,—a most appealing artlessness—of old? Abigail had gone away to boarding school at the Canandaigua Episcopal Female Seminary some miles to the west, where her cousin Georgina was already a student,—nay, one of the “leaders”—and she could see, in the Georgina of the present, certain remnants of that schoolgirl, in whom high spirits, willfulness, and a penchant for sarcasm contended. She would have liked to inquire, discreetly, after Georgina’s poetry: as to whether she had in truth abandoned it,—as, it was said, her father wished; but knew not how to introduce the subject. (Georgina had published a few poems, under the nom de plume of “Iphigenia,” which Abigail had had pointed out to her, in one or another of the magazines: difficult, obscure, riddlesome, and, it seemed to Abigail’s untrained eye, needlessly disagreeable verse!—which baffled the intellect with its clotted syntax, and the ear, with its failure to rhyme. As a schoolgirl at Canandaigua she had quite intimidated her teachers, as well as her fellow students, with her promise as a poetess; yet her development afterward, so far as Abigail and others in the family could determine, was most disappointing.)