All Bedlam Courses Past (part sixty-eight)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Three

An Object in Motion

(part sixty-eight) 

iii.

Worth the Wait

There was, and there was not. Urgency, as to her mission.

She saw that the card could be played. Winning her point would cost him pride, and Richard could spare it. His father’s cousin had boarded a northbound train with the genial expectation of newness, in people, in habits and sights; in elder Bertrand was a bent towards expansion—and evidence of wealth. It might take the persevering spine of a Cleome Towson to hold Richard in thrall, while ticking off the virtues of getting in and the faults (the very great faults) of muzzy politics…

She had knocked that morning at Gilbert’s door, Mrs. Koker a step behind, shifting her housekeeping book in and out of her apron pocket—

In charge in this duty, given her due, but unable to speak French. Whether Élucide raked his ears with her own, or whether, making girlish demands, she troubled his sense of propriety, Gilbert was a flincher.

“What’s he say?” Mrs. Koker asked.

“He says he’s booked for a Tuesday morning sailing…”

“Tuesday!” The bachelor men were given facing rooms, and Bertrand was not a door-closer. “He doesn’t mean next week!”

“Well, then, when’s he wanting his trunk at the depot? Have to get himself gone tomorrow, take half a week just riding back to Washington.”

“Oh, I don’t know that it does these days, ma’am. Trains run straight through Ohio out of Indianapolis. I think someplace after that they have mountains…”

To mollify Mrs. Koker with these guesses, Élucide had turned her back to Gilbert, and he recessed into his room. Bertrand came out of his to join them. “I think I may persuade our friend to have me accompany him to Baltimore. Less of the book…” He gestured a laborious leafing after phrases. “I told them at home that when I return I’ll telegraph, nothing else. So it’s no difference to me to go by another way, or take a longer time. And I have big news for them!”

“Worth the wait.”

He chuckled. “I may have to engage new servants. It’s not a thing I would ask, them all to come north. I will offer the choice, of course.”

And of course, there was the capital; no doubt, every American ought to have seen Washington at some point…

73

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part sixty-nine)

(2023, Stephanie Foster)