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

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Five

Collecting Debts

(part one hundred thirty-five)

She was helping to recast Well-Being in the image of Immortia, the New England Community of Seekers quarterly. She was reviewing, for another task, the many books mailed to Ebrach by their authors. And she was sitting, two days or three a week, here with Immortia, Light, the American Spiritualist—picking out articles to re-feature.

“On a theme.”

“Yes. Good. I think one per quarter, until we’ve cycled through the eight virtues…then possibly a series of lives. We may travel together to interview Dr. Crowninshield. He is ninety this year, spry of course…but, better done than not.”

Her parents. Still, she noted, Charlestown, exciting chance, has to be done.

“And if you can draft a short letter for each issue touching on its theme.”

Noted. Honoré with his verses, and the bulk of advertising, managed the Well aspect; Élucide would assume the Being. These livings from their benefactor amounted to a family trust, a Fund for Lost Gremots.

“Belief,” she said. “The surroundings, the comforts, as opposed to… That man Tinker. If he prayed, nothing was coming to his mind to lift him out of the ditch. Then a missionary, suppose, brings him to a cot, gives him a blanket and a meal… Would he say he was feeling God’s love? After those material improvements?”

“I have material things to give, and Tinker has none. Put it that way. Are comforts a vehicle? If I keep and don’t give what I’m able, am I the obstacle to God’s love’s expression? Or we might say the lack is in the subject, that true belief will seek better surroundings. If Honoré believed—I stand by this utterly—his consumptive condition would be fully cured. You don’t know how ill Mr. Unversaght is.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“And I cannot take the liberty of telling you. But belief and surroundings together are the reason he lives. His doctor has written me his astonishment.”

Oh, tell, she willed Ebrach. Unversaght looked scrofulous and purpuric. Emotion caused a bluish netting to mantle his face, a reliable presentation of symptom when, spotting him in his chair, she stopped to flirt.

Her life was shaping in a direction.

Her world was full of patients…if the headaches had been her ambition, she might be an invalid herself. Fannie had been Governess at the spa in Missouri, helming all needs female; which was a job, a living. Becoming expert was only the gift of seeing inside them. What did Roman or Ranilde want?

Some paradox, of making the bad not be while greatly honoring medals of valor won by the sufferer. The avenue to feeling better…or to light relief, evanescent relief. It was all more interesting than society, infirmity, its stripped-down quality of milieu. You wanted people to tell the truth. You would rather talk about what was vital than what old men thought would raise a young lady’s laughter, or matrons thought would correct her, edify her.

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Bedlam

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

(2024, Stephanie Foster)