All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred twenty-two)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Five

Collecting Debts

(part one hundred twenty-two)

She walked away. A man with alacrity would have said, “What are you paying?”

In her secret heart, she wanted to sit on Cemetery Hill and watch the hospital roll in the ditch, like everyone else. But she was meant to squeeze in…pitch in, in aid of her cousin’s debut.

Two boys, she saw, were dogging Isa’s heels, ankling round his shins when they could, plucking at his coat, knocking his hat over his eyes. Today he wore livery, a new purchase, nothing of going-all-out not brought to bear in the crushing of Rowan’s spectacle.

She unmuffed a hand. “Shoo! Isa, give me your crop.”

She heard Yeager beg pardon of a couple, saw his arm push past to clamp a hooligan’s, his leg plant a backside kick that ran one boy against the other.

A woman spoke: “Well, that’s a sorry thing!”

She was someone met, campaigning, or at Edith’s wedding. Her husband crowd-whispered: “That little French fellow, Miss, your cousin…”

“How is he ever doing, Élucide?”

“Oh, so much better, ma’am.”

The wife chatted on about Bertrand, what a heart-warmer, that little boy kept from his father all those years, knowing how she’d of felt if Vernon…

Makes the difference, the husband said, to Yeager. A household. Compared to being let run on the streets.

The Gremot carriage sat curbed to take the parade’s lead. Élucide willed Edith, upstreet a few yards with Weller and Fannie, to recognize her friends and call to them.

But, politics…

“Mother! Look who I ran into!”

The tableau was of Frailty, Braced in Courage for the Community Good. Honoré’s face not much to be seen, only martyred eyes above a muffler; Ranilde straining on her feet between Mother and Papa, braving too much in search of McClurkins.

To a degree, Élucide felt unsympathetic to both.

When the carriages had circled the park twice, Papa would have Isa drive in. The senator and his family before the bandstand were a feature of the program. She was paired with Honoré, and responsible, if he coughed, for pulling tonics and hankies from a basket.

Her father’s speech had been crafted with a nod to Mr. Lincoln; towards, nominally, no other aim. Mayor Walsh would step onto the Gremot running board for remarks…ask applause for the band, the G.A.R., the Committee, Mr. Nachfolger; praise the goodwill and dedication of Cookesvillians, the climb, hand over hand, from log cabin days to present glory, echoed in the lives of our two slain leaders—

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred twenty-three)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)