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

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Five

Collecting Debts

(part one hundred twenty-five)

For a donation (expected large) in consideration of expense, a record might be searched by a priest, who would begin by being the wrong priest, located by an official, who would begin by being the wrong official. This would take the better part of a year, and a barrage of overseas telegrams, to arrive merely at the end of these beginnings—

“But, ridiculous. We have a hundred better things to spend money on.”

“I’d pay to beat Rowan in court. Sober him up, he deserves it. I wouldn’t mind calling him out.”

“Yes,” Mother said, “you would.”

Élucide, using the Armour bible and ruse of recording Honoré’s history, had driven to Crownhaven. She had gained a birthdate, November 11, 1850. A father and mother, Gauthier and Anne-Claude; Anne-Claude’s maiden name, with resentment, not known. These few items Honoré could furnish, but no, his birth parish he did not know. His family had not lived in Huy, the city, “…but where if asked, one would say Huy.”

After his third birthday, for his father’s debts they had lived in Brussels.

“But your father came to save well. Bérénice says he left a good…so many francs to Bertrand.” She had made a slight wave of the hand, to stop herself naming the sum.

She saw Honoré echo this. “I haven’t Madame Sartain’s recollections.”

To please Clotilde, Élucide had inked in Jeanne Sartain, married to Jean-Louis Paquette, parents of Laurentine, Clotilde, Henri, Thérèse, Jean-Louis.

Brightly, then, in the act of leaving: “And that brings the families together!”

Clotilde’s eyes had grown moist, Honoré’s narrow…

This is the strength of our Union, that we are a law-abiding people. The savagery of a madman cannot, in the Land of Liberty, divert our mission of highest principle. We pray, as General Garfield would join us…

“Or…it was his bent to be a devout man of God…” A gust of wind had snatched Mayor Walsh’s notes from his hatband. “That the Lord’s will in all things be done. Amen.”

Amen from the crowd; and: “I give you the senator, Mr. Walter A. Gremot.”

In the carriage, Élucide made her back straight. Cookesville eyes were straining for that open look at Honoré. Honoré continued, face and figure, depressed. But if his pride told him he was well, he had cause to sit with the family and show himself in defiance.

Papa, standing, doffed his hat, and waited for Walsh to reach the City Council at the plinth. Then, putting listeners in mind of solemn vows, of speaking now or forever holding peace, he began:

134

Bedlam

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

(2024, Stephanie Foster)