All Bedlam Courses Past (part ninety-one)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Three

An Object in Motion

(part ninety-one)

 

 

 

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Here, the story being too good, Mother bent to the armrest and lowered her voice. “Will you believe Mary wanted us to take them both? An eleven-year-old live-in maid, and a six-year-old, what…? Samuel can run any kind of errand, she told me. I’d have said, take your children to live with your husband, whether it pleases Lawrence or not. But she’ll send Lidah out no matter, so I feel…we can at least be kind.”

“English’s is quite a bachelor establishment, so I’ve heard,” Fannie murmured.

 

What ought a sister to do with her brother-in-law in the hours after supper when healthy-feeling people did not retire? And when the Paton child was upstairs if Ranilde wanted a thing fetched?

Owen’s friends were too boisterous, he preferred not letting them in—

To a house the McClurkin side had furnished little, filled with new-bought articles still counted the property of W. A. Gremot; and the dainties, as Owen’s father called glass and china, so many heartbreaks-in-waiting.

The pup had grown large. “Ziegler came by and said Mr. Gremot wanted him at the livery.”

“He didn’t.”

“Well, no. He spoke for himself, but I sensed the hand at work.”

“It’ll do you no good. You know what I mean!” She answered Owen’s twitching smile. “Borrowing trouble. Dogs need keeping, and you couldn’t have thought Ranilde…”

“The wisdom of seventeen, scolding me.”

At the desk, she dealt blank calling cards, and four sheets of notepaper. “What are you planning for Nildie? The anniversary, and for Christmas? You’ve got twice the work, you’d better be quick.”

“What now?”

“Do you want me to letter the cards? Do you want to write the invitations yourself? Do you want a dinner, with your parents, and Edith and Polly…and Fannie may come…”

“Oh. To celebrate the wedding. The year gone by.”

“And then, don’t you think you should buy her a pearl?”

“Only the one? Does it come attached to a chain? Or just my poor wages?”

“For the loss. I think you’re supposed to. Ask Uncle George.”

“I will not.”

She crossed the room, to unroll her godmother’s Home Ways from the umbrella stand. They had a place marked, amid “Too Many Colbys”, and Lidah, in her tidying, could not only unmark a place, she could disappear a periodical altogether.

“We’ll give up for the night, but Owen…”

“I do not want a dinner, but I’ll have one. My parents don’t want a dinner, but they’ll come, bringing two hens on a platter, and the great blue tureen with a tinned-mackerel stew, and a pudding or several, in case the vittles run shy. And yes, I will write the invitations. Your mother and father consider me an oaf, and I’ll disappoint them, thank you. Why are they not invited, by the way?”

“I have to tell Mother and she’ll decide. The hows and whens. I don’t think Papa will come.”

“No.”

The game was to read the dialogue aloud, and each character a particular person—Dr. Horace, say, or Cleome Towson. The game was wicked and silly, and needed their laughter held low, not to trouble Ranilde.

 

 

96

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part ninety-two)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)