All Bedlam Courses Past (part thirty-eight)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Two

Avarice Creeping On

(part thirty-eight)

“Oh, sixty, thereabouts. Soon had an inkling…not to joke…what was the truth of the matter. Demrose meant to raise scandal on Parker’s character, as in, ‘a well-known party who hopes to make tracks for the western territories’…and went on to accuse Parker of what he knew a thing about, luring investors with false claims of solvency. Buckley read through the article at the lunch table, and would liked to throw it in the fire. Of course you know the wages of hesitation. Buckley aimed to welcome Demrose into the family, which among gentlemen means whatever I have is yours, Papa…and Buckley’s paper existed, so it happened, for the calumniating of Free-Soilers. Wouldn’t be his strong suit, arguing on integrity of the press.

“Demrose filled the silence with a little prattle about the log church founded on a hilltop by his grandfather (a lie), how they’d all go up in a caravan of carriages. Only forty souls, though, no more fit. But maybe stage a ball, invite the city, open up the old Cloughman place. His daughter could speak to all that better than himself…

“You best take it, she did. Buckley gave way, said he’d run the piece. Handed it off next morning to his callow editor. Here’s where your Mr. Rowan comes in.”

The New Democrat’s helmsman was not a Nashville native, only a backwoodser from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. “Brought forth from the wilderness because of some relationship Buckley had with Rowan’s mother.”

Rowan had been instructed to judge for himself…but not to judge all that sharply.

To the young man’s as-yet-unhardened heart, it seemed that if a blackguard meant to swindle the locals, as hinted the unnamed writer, the New Democrat ought to expose this fiddle in a timely way. His blue pencil fell on Demrose’s prose like featherdown.

Frugal enough is this Cock of the Walk, this strutting rooster who crows when the sun sits high in the sky, disturbing the peace with his ancient accents; and wishing the Man Who Doesn’t Know What Time It Is to infer, as to the bird’s credentials. Aye, so frugal is this barnyard denizen, that he saves all his close-guarded Letters of Credit for a more prosperous day, lest sunlight expose the secret lines between…

None of this phraseology troubled Rowan, who hadn’t met Parker. To Parker, these remarks read delineating and personal. Further, it never crossed his mind to doubt the author, his enemy’s marital ambitions being known to all. And there was the rub. Parker considered Demrose of no account, but Buckley, who had sway, who owned the pernicious vehicle-of-influence at issue, seemed to take Demrose’s part. Parker saw himself respectable, well-settled in his new home. He would be run out of Nashville on the strength of a shameful pack of lies, mere libelous inventions…

42

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part thirty-nine)

(2023, Stephanie Foster)