All Bedlam Courses Past (part thirty)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Two

Avarice Creeping On

(part thirty)

 

 

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Gilbert watched the now heavily-patrolled yard recede. In this enterprise had been something of dash, that he’d missed out on. He could not regret what he had got…a story, to be sure…and did not blame Lecomte (faulting only his own ignorance).

The boat skimmed as the river willed, to its confluence with the Potomac, and Allen, whistling, unpocketed a sheaf of cards. He shouted in Gilbert’s ear: “Eight o’clock in the p.m., Towne theayter, Werewolf of Darcy Street!” He turned to Mme Allen. “Tell him he takes five, we’re square.”

“What,” Gilbert asked once more, making his purchase, “might I do, as a favor to you?”

“Yes, what?” Her smile was a world-weary degradation of coquetry. “You will remember that you owe it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

34

 

 

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iv.

An Excursion

 

 

The Vanguard’s Mr. Thacker, first name William; nickname, on the strength of some family humor, Weem (“…but you just holler, Miss, and I’ll answer to anything”), was Élucide’s escort to Nashville. Not Mr. Ryan-Neville, who had offered.

Élucide had accepted this offer; her father had vetoed it.

She had won what she could, the right to a train journey of a few hours, the right to set foot, for the first time in her life, on another state’s soil. The right to be a grown woman abroad, with a family friend for escort…

Not that Thacker was a family friend.

She was, at any rate, intelligent enough to find her way to a ticket office, sturdy enough to climb stairs, bag in hand, brave enough to dine alone in a hotel room she’d booked for herself, if one or another Sartain should be delayed.

But, so be it.

 

A letter from New Orleans had lain since Valentine’s Day of 1880, untouched, racked and racked again, on Honoré’s desk. Clotilde had tried the ploy of ostentatious dusting. “Oh, look! Here is that letter. Honoré, do you want it?”

She had tried wondering aloud if this Bertrand Sartain might not be a relative of her uncle? She had concluded, on Honoré’s batting the letter from her hand, and daily failing to see it on his breakfast tray, that he had conceived a revulsion to the name of Sartain, and meant never to open it.

“Luce, are you able…”

Élucide unsealed the letter. “Honoré won’t mind. And so… This Bertrand, who lives in New Orleans…”

She left off, as all such reminders raised a tempest of martyrly suppression. Clotilde crouched to hug Mariette aloft (and indignant), from a game of limbless wax dolls.

“Lovey,” Élucide said, putting the child right, “go shriek at your father. Maman and I are speaking. This Bertrand, Clotilde, writes to introduce himself. He is a cousin of Richard Everard. Do I need to tell you who Richard Everard is?”

Clotilde shook her head, meaning yes.

Forty years past [wrote Bertrand], he had been guest in the home of his Aunt Everard, on the most hopeful occasion to have turned the most tragic! He had seen his cousin Richard less in life, as fate would have it, than, no doubt, the Gremots, who were of a circle with him. He confessed he had not sought to amend this breach. He begged M. Gremot’s forgiveness.

And saying so much, he did not really tell the rest. Clotilde’s relative had conceived the Everards a Cookesville family. Patience, Bertrand observed in closing, brings to us delights in good time. And as I invite myself to pay this call, I ask only the recommendation of your best hotel.

(Nonsense, Élucide would reply, on Eugene’s behalf. You will stay at Crownhaven.)

 

 

35

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2023, Stephanie Foster)