Mysteries of Winterthurn

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Thus it was, the fourteen-year-old chambermaid Molly not only conceived of this unlikely development, but was possessed of no more shame than to broadcast her plight back-stairs at Ravensworth,—in the kitchen, in the wash-shed, in the smokehouse, anywhere amongst the servants where her tears and ceaseless complaints might be tolerated. An orphan, having been born of a very young girl likewise employed at Ravensworth, who had died of childbed fever, with no father’s name to bestow upon her babe, this Molly was, it was said, a pretty enough child: with flaxen curls, and wide-set blue eyes, and a dusting of freckles across her round face; cheerful and lively, most days; very possibly too cheerful, before the onset of her delusion; and, as it turned out, far too lively,—and impetuous.

  Through three, or four, or five lengthy weeks in the springtime of Valentine Westergaard’s twenty-seventh year, when the young man was troubled sufficiently, by an indecision as to which of the arts to pursue (for it was Valentine’s ironical fate to be talented both in music and in poetry), this bold young miss “kicked up a fuss” amongst the domestic staff; then, of a sudden, toward the end of May, when the pathos of her situation had been daily worsening, she contrived a remarkable fib,—in truth, several fibs: and confided in one or two of the kitchen help that, at last, the young master was “coming ’round”; he did confess to loving her; and regretted having abused her; and wished now to elope with her, to California; and make her his lawful wedded wife. The solicitous young master had secured, however, from a midwife who dwelled in Mt. Provenance, a rare species of mushroom,—a prodigy of Nature which, in the magical soil of the mountain, grew to a height well beyond five feet; and was possessed of unusually potent purgative qualities. This mushroom, when taken as medicine, would, Molly was told, cure her of the “problematic growth” in her belly; and make her pure again; and fit to be a gentleman’s bride. “For Mr. Westergaard regrets that he cannot marry anyone not a virgin,” Molly all artlessly said, “and I would not force such an ignominy on him.”

  It came about, nonetheless, despite the girl’s boast, that, some twelve hours later, her stiffening body was found in a thicket two miles from Ravensworth Park; and the diagnosis made,—by a physician who lived close by—that the desperate creature had taken poison: very likely, adjudging from the vomit on her person, a certain species of toadstool, whose lethal properties were well known: As to Valentine Westergaard, and the phantasmal notion that he even knew her name, much less wished to make her his wife,—this was of course sheer fiction: and categorically denied.

  Much tiresome fuss ensued, however; and speculation; for Molly O’Reilly’s tale of the young master, and his love for her, and plans for their future, was both repeated and embellished, not only by servants in Winterthurn but by certain of their employers. When at last the Colonel was informed, and called his grandson and sole heir to him for an explanation, poor Valentine stood for some minutes struck mute, though trembling in every limb: and then burst into tears: and confessed that, for nearly a year, the wretched girl had been pursuing him most shamelessly,—leaving love notes of a crude, and crudely expressed, sentiment on his pillow; popping out at him from behind doors; stealing up behind him as, sequestered in a quiet corner of the garden, he had been strumming his dulcimer, or steeping himself in Holy Writ. So bold was Molly,—or Milly, or Emmie; ah, the very syllables of these vulgar names irritated!—she tiptoed into his study upon more than one occasion, to toss a nosegay into his lap; and disturbed his sleep several times, through the winter and into the spring, by stealing into his bed-chamber, clad in naught but the most diaphanous of night-time garments. And this, an “innocent” girl of but fourteen years!—whose amorous appetites, no less than the bawdiness of her speech, quite repulsed the twenty-six-year-old Valentine.

  Yet, it seemed, when Valentine chastely turned her out, and locked his door against her, she went straightaway to one of the stable boys,—or, it may have been, to one of the groundsmen (for naturally none of the staff would admit it)—with the calculated intention of getting herself with child, that she might spite Valentine, and awaken jealousy in him—! (For so the desperate girl told him afterward, scarcely comprehending that he could feel no emotion for her save unbridled disgust: and a hearty wish that she vanish from his sight at once. “Then I shall boast that the child is yours,” she warned,—the which low threat poor Valentine could hardly credit, as he believed the girl but coarse and ignorant, and not at all wicked.)

  Thus, weeks passed; and Valentine sought to avoid her, and even the thought of her. But on that fatal Sunday eve she begged that he accompany her into the forest, for she had something highly important to confide in him, and, all foolishly, he consented: for he did feel some pity for her, and a measure of Christian charity. Once they were in a secluded place, a mile or two from the house, she drew from her bosom an herb of some kind, or a vegetable of some pale grayish hue,—for Valentine did not get a clear view of it—and informed him that it was poison, and that she would devour it, if he refused to return her love. Though Valentine halfway doubted the veracity of her angry words, he essayed to wrest the “poison” from her, but with no success: for she ran wild as an animal into a thicket, into which Valentine was loath to venture: and devoured the grayish substance before his eyes: and, within minutes, swayed, and fell, and lapsed into hideous convulsions. So terrified and sickened was Valentine,—indeed, affrighted near out of his wits—he ran the full distance back to the house, despite the delicacy of his lungs, and the great shock to his constitution; and, glimpsed by no one, ascended the back stairs, to his room; and fell unconscious across his bed, not to be roused for many hours. And then, ah, what confused shame was his!—for he knew himself bested by a mere chambermaid; and feared that he might never outlive the ignominy of their acquaintance.

  Thus, sobbing, Valentine Westergaard confessed all; and, on his knees, begged forgiveness from his grandfather for having made so many foolish blunders, albeit in innocence; and for having, he feared, drawn some penumbrous blight upon the Westergaard name. Doubtless the Colonel scolded him soundly, for old Westergaard, long before his dotage, was not a man to mince words: doubtless Valentine’s grief was the more inflamed, and his regret at having ever tolerated, however obliquely, the “unclean attentions” of such a creature: yet the mischief had been done, and naught but the passage of Time, and the solicitude of his family and circle, might help heal the wound.

  Both Hans Deck and Dr. Colney Hatch averred that Molly O’Reilly had died by way of toadstool poisoning, as she had threatened; and that the death,—so especially piteous in a child of her years—must be counted as self-inflicted, under these trying circumstances. No overly fastidious examination being deemed necessary, and an autopsy quite repugnant, it was never determined whether the precocious girl had indeed been with child, or had merely concocted this fancy by way of coercing Valentine: nor was the probable “father” ever named, as, of course, no member of the frightened domestic staff at Ravensworth chose to come forward, even to inform upon another.

  Thereafter, when Valentine Westergaard sang in public a certain lyric of a truly poignant loveliness, all the young female servants at Ravensworth, and elsewhere, fancied it was in homage to the tragic Molly O’Reilly: and, indeed, judging by the sentiment, and certain accidents of phraseology, one might so infer,—

  Has Sorrow thy young days shaded,

  As clouds o’er the morning fleet?

  Too fast have those young days faded

  That, even in Sorrow, were sweet—!

  Does Time with his cold wing wither

  Each feeling that once was dear?—

  Then, child of misfortune, come hither,

  And I’ll weep with thee,—tear for tear.

  But, as the young gentleman had frequently sung these lines before Molly’s death, and, indeed, even before Imogene’s, we can credit it naught but a chambermaid’s delusion,—one, I am afraid, of many.

  At Ravensworth Park

  These oft-told tales of Valentine
Westergaard, Xavier brooded upon time and again, as the summer deepened, and grew ever more sluggish, and his own investigation into the case faltered: for he was convinced that Valentine Westergaard had poisoned Molly O’Reilly,—and murdered his sister Imogene, in a most loathsome fashion—and that Valentine, and no one else, was the “Cruel Suitor.” Indeed, was the conclusion not self-evident? How was it possible that all of Winterthurn failed to see? Yet, if Xavier brought the subject up, in however casual a manner,—as in a remark, put to Shearwater, or Munck, or Hollingshead, or, indeed, anyone at all: Odd, is it not, that Valentine Westergaard is the only person associated with each of the murdered girls?—his words rang out in an uncanny sort of stillness, or vacuum, not only as if they were not heard, but very nearly as if they had never been uttered.

  “Why, as a mere boy of sixteen I had known that Valentine murdered his sister, and sensed that everyone around me knew,” Xavier inwardly murmured, “albeit such ‘knowledge,’ in itself, is altogether useless.”

  Only Wolf, encountered by happenstance on one of Xavier’s nocturnal perambulations in the city, deigned to hear Xavier’s remark, and to comprehend its precise significance. With a slight stiffening of his handsome features, and after but a moment’s hesitation, he said easily: “Ah, but you must remember, Calvin, and Lloyd, and Francis, and perhaps one or two others, were with Valentine for much of that evening, just having returned, I believe, from the track at Nautauga Falls: surely such companionship constitutes an ‘alibi’—? Why, it is even likely that Colin dropped in, somewhat later, for, you know, he is quite entranced by Valentine, albeit he has always scorned him for his dress and manners,—and it is said that Valentine finds him wondrously droll and amusing.”

  Before Xavier could draw breath to protest that he found it impossible to speak with Colin, on any subject at all, Wolf hurriedly continued: “In any case, Xavier, Valentine should be most distressed to hear such things by way of you, for, you know, he is an inordinately sensitive person; and, withal, he is particularly fond of you.”

  Xavier stared at his brother, to determine if he spoke seriously, or no; then said, with a studied effort at coolness: “Why, I had thought he disliked me,—surely it cannot be a secret how I dislike him?”

  Smiling, and frowning, and stroking one side of his mustache, Wolf said: “I shall not be the one to convey such news to Valentine, you may be sure.”

  “Why not?” Xavier brashly inquired, as his brother hailed a lone hackney cab that had appeared on the darkened avenue. “Are you fearful of your friend’s well-being?”

  With a negligent wave Wolf bade him adieu, and laughingly said: “No,—rather more of my brother’s.”

  AS CUSTOMS, MANNERS, AND NICETIES of behavior have so sadly altered in Winterthurn through the long decades separating our present-day time from that of our narrative, it were well for me to recall the protocol of dining at Ravensworth Park,—indeed, at the majority of the great homes of that bygone era.

  Invitations to Ravensworth being set precisely for the hour of seven-thirty, no guests dared, or, indeed, wished, to arrive at the front gate more than two or three minutes before this time; and should any guests be so rude as to arrive after, it was tacitly understood that they would never be asked again.

  Dinner proceeded with ceremonial calm, and the utmost dignity, never ending before a full two hours; and rarely lasting beyond that point, as a number of the guests, at Ravensworth and elsewhere, were invariably agèd, and had need of retiring early. So far as the Westergaards were concerned,—as the Colonel was of an exacting disposition, and insisted upon “running a tight ship,” protocol at his table demanded that, in addition to carrying on, more or less, an amiable conversation with one’s partner, one maintain a strict vigilance regarding the Colonel. That is, when the white-haired gentleman chose to shift the focus of his attention, abruptly or otherwise, from the lady on his left, to the lady on his right, it were well for all the other gentlemen to follow suit, though they be surprised in midstream, so to speak: otherwise the Colonel’s veined eyelids would conspicuously tremble, as if he had been grievously offended; and his staring green eyes, which possessed very nearly the glassy power of his grandson’s, would grow more luminous yet. Punctually at ten o’clock, before even the first strokes of the house’s numerous clocks began to sound, Colonel Westergaard would signal to a favored manservant, that he be assisted to his feet; whereupon the entire table rose, in one near-coordinated motion, whether all had finished their dessert and coffee, or no. Following this, with no deviance from the pattern within memory (save for the evening when Miss Georgina Kilgarvan had suffered from an embarrassing species of gastric upset, and had had to be hurried away upstairs by the Westergaard’s housekeeper), the ladies were escorted to the adjoining drawing room, there to enjoy one of the more lightsome of the liqueurs; and the gentlemen made their way to the Colonel’s library, there to indulge in brandy and cigars, and conversation of a more manly sort. Here, there was some relaxation, albeit, under the Colonel’s narrowed eye, not an excessive amount: and, after precisely thirty minutes, a manservant opened the doors between the two rooms, which signaled the onset of the final part of the evening, when the gentlemen graciously rejoined the ladies for another thirty minutes of sociable repartee.

  At this point, the Colonel nodded sharply in the direction of his grandson Valentine, that the young man help him to his feet: and all of the guests, not excluding, upon most occasions, the garrulous Olivia Westergaard, whom liqueur, it was said, made tipsy, went silent at once, as the evening’s festivities were formally closed.

  THE EVENING XAVIER KILGARVAN ESCORTED his mother to the Westergaards’, shortly after the first of August, conversation was rather more lively than usual, following this course: during the cocktail period, the upcoming racing season was discussed, at Saratoga, Belmont, and Nautauga Falls,—this topic being led by the Colonel, and enthusiastically developed by Henry Peregrine, Harrier Von Goeler, and Valentine Westergaard, who hoped for “undeserved good fortune, as his deserved ill-fortune, of the previous season, had quite beggared him.” During the soup course, the soup itself (a delicate French turtle’s-blood consommé) was praised, and analyzed, and placed in comparison to a like soup, served some days previous, at the Goshawks’,—with no conscious insult being intended, though none of the Goshawks was present. The salmon course was accompanied by so prodigious a French wine, that subject quite absorbed the entire table; albeit, near the conclusion, Xavier was interrogated by Valentine Westergaard, as to the degree to which his “sensual palate” had been altered by a recent peregrination to France. (Somewhat discountenanced by this inquiry, Xavier expressed a doubt that his palate had been significantly altered at all, as he could not contrive an interest in such trivial matters: so far as he was able, he ate and drank sparingly: which reply seemed to please Valentine, who made haste to concur with his judgment.)

  The following course, consisting of canvasback duck, ushered in a prolonged discussion of débutante balls and cotillions: and focus naturally shifted upon pretty Mary-Louise Von Goeler, who had come out in Winterthurn society but a few years before, and had a few comments to make,—this young woman of four-and-twenty being altogether charming, with close-set gray eyes, and a quick thin smile, and a habit of cocking her head to one side. (As to whether she and the handsome young heir of Ravensworth Park would ever marry,—indeed, whether they would ever become affianced—no one seemed to know, or to wish to speculate.)

  During the meat course, the quality of the veal was admiringly discussed, and one or two upcoming social events; and Mrs. Bunting’s plans to replace her Belgian linen wallpaper (in her upstairs boudoir) with a lighter floral design. During the game course, the venison was thoughtfully analyzed, as to whether it struck some palates as inordinately salty, or no: and the degree of success of the accompanying Burgundy wine: and the upcoming hunting season, which several of the gentlemen, including the Colonel, anticipated with great relish. (Though not Valentine Westerg
aard, who risked his grandfather’s censure by visibly shuddering, and running a nervous hand through his tight-curled red hair, murmuring the while that though he could abide, he supposed, the disguised taste of blood, in meat or soup, he would surely faint quite away at the sight of it, in any vulgar quantity. “In which I suspect I am alone amidst the present company, of my sex,” he all bravely continued, “unless Xavier too eschews the pleasures of the hunt: for I believe I have heard of my industrious young friend that he has no time for such ‘trivial’ preoccupations.” To which remark Xavier replied, in a curt and startled tone, that he had little time, these days, for preoccupations of any sort.)

  Next, over salad, Colonel Westergaard initiated a general, though not overly animated, discussion of a yachting competition of some decades past; over cheese and fruit, the subject ranged wide, to include boats owned by several of the gentlemen, and races either forthcoming or already past, and accidents that had, or had not, occurred, by the grace of God. As if inadvertently, mention was made of the Versfield “tragedy,” but swallowed up almost at once, as a lapse of taste, before Xavier could turn his attention to it,—indeed, had he heard correctly? Over dessert, the remarkable texture of the meringue was discussed, and the exquisite sweetness of the wine, and a forthcoming marriage, and the prospects of the next day’s weather. After which, when the Colonel abruptly rose from his chair, the dinner proper ended.

  IF THE READER IS CURIOUS as to why, in defiance, as it were, of Thérèse’s warning, Xavier Kilgarvan accepted an invitation to dine in the company of Valentine Westergaard,—I suppose it was the case that the frustrated young detective yearned for something to transpire, whether dangerous to him, or no: for is not something preferable to nothing, in such situations—? The impasse at which he found himself, after so many weeks of inquiry, and brooding, and ratiocination, was such that he knew himself close to despondency: and he took it as an ill omen that, on three nights in succession, following his inconclusive interview with Isaac Rosenwald, he had hoped to placate his strained nerves, and raise his spirits to some modest degree, by the more vigorously immersing himself not in work, or in reading,—or, indeed, in composing a strategic species of letter for Perdita—but in solitary drinking, in one or another of the humble taverns on lower Union Avenue. (Albeit young Kilgarvan indulged himself thusly to but a prudent degree,—two or three tankards of bitters, downed over a period of some hours, being the limit of his indulgence.) Also, it happened that Mrs. Kilgarvan was wont to languish for a more varied social life, and very much appreciated being asked to dine at Ravensworth: Mr. Kilgarvan, though duly included in such invitations, being loath to venture into society in recent years, as his toy-designing and-fashioning work consumed all his energy. (To Xavier he said, in a bemused tone, that he could no more sit properly at a dinner table without twitching, and scratching himself, than could his assistant Tobias for all those hours: and he had rather carve puppets and dolls with his own hands than be trapped in a dining room with them, and forced to take them seriously.)