The Accursed. Joyce Carol Oates

into, as a young bride . . .”

      (Mrs. Cleveland was coyly referring, as often she did, to the White House: she had married the much older President Cleveland in the East Wing of that house, as a girl scarcely out of school.)

      And there came Grover Cleveland’s booming voice, in a playful sort of rejoinder—“Dear Frances! You have overcome your initial disadvantage, that is certain. Many times!”

      Out of a stubborn sort of diffidence, perhaps, the three young people had stayed behind. Dabney Bayard, erect and handsome in his dress uniform, made a game effort to engage Josiah Slade in a quasi-masculine conversation on one or another topic: the fortunes of the New York Highlanders against their rivals the Cincinnati Reds, and the caliber of both teams set beside the Boston Americans; horses, most hopefully—for Dabney was something of a horseman; and the latest antics of the President—Teddy Roosevelt proudly photographed with a spread of animal-corpses at his feet—wild sheep, bison, deer and pumas on a lavish hunting expedition in the West; Teddy threatening to intervene in Venezuela, that was defaulting on its debts (“It will show the Dagos that they will have to behave decently”*); Teddy in virtually every edition of every daily newspaper, grinning out and eyeglasses winking as he trumpeted the virtues of the imperialist Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

      Lieutenant Bayard was particularly interested in discussing the “outlaw mining strikes” in eastern Pennsylvania, lately the focus of much newspaper coverage. How “itching” Dabney was, to be involved in some sort of U.S. Army intervention! (That morning, Reverend FitzRandolph at the pulpit had alluded to the “anarchist and atheistical outrages” perpetrated by the United Mine Workers of America against the mine owners and, by extension, against the “law-abiding citizenry” of the American people as a whole.) Yet, though the Slades of Crosswicks had investments in the Pennsylvania mines, as in New Jersey and Pennsylvania textile mills, and Josiah might be expected to concur with Dabney’s sentiments, Josiah only shrugged indifferently, and held himself aloof; and Annabel stood blushing at her fiancé’s side, not knowing whether to be distressed by her brother’s rudeness, or vexed.

      (Josiah had no way of knowing that Annabel had, that morning, happened to overhear a brief exchange between him and their mother, Henrietta; and that Annabel was wounded, to hear of Josiah’s studied indifference regarding the day’s outing. If he joined the party, Josiah said, it was only to please her, and the other, elder Slades; for he doubted that his sister, so distracted by wedding plans, would notice if he accompanied them, or not.)

      What was wrong, Annabel wondered; why could not the three of them be easy in one another’s company? Before Josiah had realized that Dabney Bayard was “interested in” Annabel, he’d seemed to like the robust young man well enough; the two had attended the Princeton-Yale homecoming football game, the previous fall, with a rowdy contingent of other young Princeton males. But Josiah had soon surmised Dabney’s reasons for visiting Crosswicks, and had begun to withdraw from him, though he was too polite, or, in a way too shy, to speak of any reservations he had for Dabney to Annabel.

      Annabel wished that her friend Wilhelmina had stayed downstairs with them, at this crucial time. But Wilhelmina—“Willy”—had been the first one to dash upstairs, on an impromptu tour of the house.

      Frequently, since early April, Annabel was finding herself lapsing into silence when she and her fiancé were alone together: for their romantic acquaintanceship had been fashioned amid parties and social gatherings, and the tricky matter of “intimate conversation” seemed to baffle them both. Of what did one speak, if no one else overheard? And too, Annabel was beginning to sense that for all his Virginian predecessors, Dabney was not always so well mannered and patient; she had reason to believe that he had a considerable temper, for she’d overheard him speak sharply to servants, waiters, and the like; he had never spoken harshly to her of course, but, at times, his remarks were tinged with a light sort of irony, putting her in mind of the young, greenish thorns on her mother’s prize rosebushes, that looked harmless yet could inflict some small damage if one were not careful.

      As to Lieutenant Bayard’s temper, Annabel thought: He is only expressing his nature. He is a man, and he is a soldier.

      For all of Dabney’s pose of confidence, however, he was often unsettled by Josiah Slade, who was, at twenty-four, two years younger than he; but of the two, the more seemingly self-reliant, whose habits of silence made Dabney uneasy, and prone to talk all the more, sometimes boastfully; though he was not, he believed, a boastful person—the most impressive army officers, it was well known, were those who remained reticent, while others told of their exploits.

      It was an awkwardness between them, that Josiah Slade had attended West Point after his graduation from Princeton—but only for four months. Abruptly, he had renounced his appointment, quit, and spent several months traveling in the West, before returning home. (When asked why he’d dropped out of West Point, about which he’d been so enthusiastic before enrolling, Josiah had said, with a shrug, that he’d had more than enough of “marching in uniform” for one lifetime.) During the months he’d traveled in Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and northern California, no one in the family had known very clearly what Josiah was doing though, like a loving son, he wrote home each week, if briefly, to assure his family that he was alive and well.

      And so, confronted with his fiancée’s brother, Dabney Bayard was often at a loss for words. How unnerving it was, and how maddening!—for young Bayard, with close-clipped chestnut hair in undulant waves, and long eyelashes, and a quick forthcoming smile, was accustomed to the admiration of women, and of his elders; and yearned only for the admiration, or, at least, the acceptance, of young men of his own age and background, like Josiah Slade.

      “Is there some reason you don’t like Dabney?”—so Annabel had asked her brother, shyly; but Josiah had said, with as much sincerity as he could muster, “No! Not at all. What matters, Annabel, is that you like him.”

      This was an oblique answer, which Annabel did not know how to decode. But she noted the bland like and not the more forceful love out of her brother’s mouth.

      And what of Josiah Slade? His character is so complex, and contradictory, and problematic, and, it may as well be said, so “fated,” I don’t feel qualified to analyze it here, as I would not feel 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