Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 42, May 1947

The Wedding Dress by Louis Bromfield

Pulitzer Prize winner, Louis Bromfield, needs no introduction to American readers. The author of THE GREEN BAY TREE, EARLY AUTUMN, THE STRANGE CASE OF MISS ANNIE SPRAGG, and THE FARM, has had his later novels — life THE RAINS CAME and MRS. PARKINGTON — transformed into super-budget Class A motion pictures that have spread his name all over the world. Once upon a time Mr. Bromfield announced that in his writing he would devote himself exclusively to the American scene; he has not, alas, kept that promise, but you will find the spirit of it in his short-short story, “The Wedding Dress.”

Yes, there is something very American in the short sketch Mr. Bromfield has written about Zenobia White, the queer old maid who lived for almost a century, spending her lonely days in the little house surrounded by bushes and pressed upon by the great trees of the forest, surrounded too by the scores of mongrel dogs and prowling cats. And yet, in this short character study, is the very stuff Hollywood delights in for its spectacular love pictures. Mr. Bromfield has the double-touch, and it has proved Midaslike to one of America’s most famous gentlemen-farmers.

Copyright 1925, by Louis Bromfield

Zenobia White is dead! This morning as I came down to breakfast I saw through the tall window that overlooks the meadows the figure of Jabez Torrence, who lives on the river farm, coming up the lane from the highroad. He was running, and when he saw me he cried out in a loud voice, “Zenobia White is dead!”

And then he fell silent, embarrassed, speechless, as if he understood at once how silly it was to be excited over the death of a queer old maid who had lived long past her time — an old woman who had lived for almost a century.

“Zenobia White is dead!”

Something had gone out of our world... the world of Jabez and me and all the county. Who could say what it was?

She had been dead for three days, said Jabez. No one would have found her in her little house among the bushes if her dogs had not set up a mournful unbroken howling. Jabez’ father had walked in through the thicket surrounding her house. “Even the birds,” said Jabez, “were still.” He walked through the chickens and dogs and cats up to the door, and knocked. But there was only silence, as there had been only silence on one lonely night more than seventy years before. Inside on her bed Zenobia White lay dead. She was dressed in a wedding gown of white silk, with the veil of a bride covering her immensely old and wrinkled face. The stuff of the dress was so old that it had turned yellow. It must have been made eighty years ago.

So something had gone out of our world, and Jabez, in his bewilderment knew it as well as I. We should never see Zenobia White again, walking down the highroad with the long train of her yellow taffeta dress trailing in the white dust, a basket over one arm, her lace mitts adjusted neatly, the plumes in her big hat waving in the breeze... Zenobia White, walking down the white highroad, very tall and straight and proud for such an immensely old woman, her black eyes flashing proudly beneath the little veil of black lace that hung from her queer bedraggled bonnet... Zenobia White, immensely fierce and old, dressed always in yellow taffeta like Sarah Bernhardt in the picture by Carolus Duran... Zenobia White, followed by a whole procession of cats.

Far down the valley beyond the figure of Jabez I could see the little house surrounded by bushes. I could even see for a moment a glimpse of the old white horse which Zenobia had raised from a colt and which had never known harness or saddle... the old white horse which lived inside her garden and attacked any intruder with bared teeth and unshod hoofs... the old white horse which this morning had not attacked Jabez’ father. This morning, when Zenobia White lay dead in her wedding dress, he stood sadly, waiting... The garden was full of birds, orioles and wrens and cardinals and a great number of dogs — queer, yellow mongrel dogs, unwanted by anyone, which had come to live with old Zenobia. And cats too, scores of them, which prowled in peace beside the dogs.

Zenobia White, with a thousand stories clinging to her memory! The story of the night when robbers evaded the old white horse and tortured Zenobia by baking her feet in her own oven! But she had not told them where her money was. They had gone away when she fainted, defeated. And after that Zenobia’s proud walk carried the hint of a limp...

But she belonged to my grandfather’s day — a tall, handsome girl of twenty who sat a horse like an Amazon and was courted by half the men of the county. But even in those days she had lived alone in the cottage. The mother of Zenobia White had been an Indian woman, an Iroquois princess, who died soon after she was born. At twenty she was an orphan.

Zenobia White at twenty, living alone in the days when prowlers and renegade Indians infested the county. But Zenobia, young and beautiful, had stayed in the little house by the river, alone, armed with her father’s pistols.

“But Zenobia,” my grandfather used to say, “could look out for herself.” He knew, perhaps, because he was one of those who admired her.

But Zenobia loved, with all the fierceness in her black eyes, young McDougal, red-haired and fiery-tempered, the fastest runner in all the county. And she was to marry him. They went in the long, still summer evenings to ride the tangled trails of the wild countryside. And they quarreled, for they were both of high tempers. And one night, two days before they were to be married, my grandfather, returning from the mill, saw them come home. They had quarreled, and Zenobia rode a little ahead of her lover, flushed and angry and handsome. And when they reached the cottage she turned in alone, without a word... My grandfather says she was a beautiful woman.

And then (my grandfather said) Zenobia had gone into the house, and after bolting the doors and windows of the lonely house against intruders sat down to read her Bible and pray that her fierce spirit might be subdued. She sat reading thus until long after midnight... in a tiny house set in a clearing pressed upon by the great trees of the forest. And presently, as Zenobia read, the sound of footsteps stole in upon her consciousness — faint and confused in the rustling of the lilacs — the sound of footsteps — the footsteps of one or perhaps of many men.

Zenobia put out the flame of the single mutton tallow candle and sat listening, listening to the sounds in the garden, the sound of the owls and of the wind rising over the river. And slowly, when the sounds persisted, she took her father’s pistol and, raising it, fired through the door, to frighten the ghostly intruders. The sound of a shot and then a silence while Zenobia stood there in the darkness with the smoking pistol in her hand, waiting... waiting!

There was only silence. They had gone away. There was nothing but the sighing of the wind and the faint hooting of the owls...

And in the morning (my grandfather said) Zenobia was awakened by the brilliant spring sun streaming in at the window and by the happy clamor of the thrushes and cardinals in the garden. The sunlight fell upon the wedding dress that lay spread out over the chair at her side. And when she had dressed and gone downstairs (she was singing, she told my grandfather) she unbolted the doors and windows one by one until she came to the last which opened into the garden. And there, full in the path, face downward, his red hair flaming in the sunlight, lay Jock McDougal — dead — with a bullet through his heart.

I looked up and saw the figure of Jabez, sitting now under a tree in the lane, still puzzling. We shall never again see Zenobia White with the procession of cats at her heels, her yellow taffeta trailing the white dust. Zenobia White is dead. She is being buried tomorrow in her wedding dress.