All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred sixty-nine)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Seven

Can’t Leave for Staying

(part one hundred sixty-nine)

Lawrence, with a forced sober face, said after a while, “Boy’s never been any good with the rabbits.”

“Liked looking after them, though, didn’t he?” Longing to pet them, comfort them, aid their escape into the wild. “Money come with strings attached? What’d Miss Luce say to you?”

A standing motion battled to a sit. “She thinks he’ll make a printer’s devil at the Vanguard, if I’d board him in town. Time he gets to be fourteen. Might have Anthony help me with the skinning.”

Anthony was not a name Richard knew. “All for the best.”

He sensed a nervous brew at his side. Anger, duty…love, lost. He began to think Lawrence waited a proposal. You have a few years before apprenticing Samuel. Might not cost as much as five hundred…

Loan me three. You, my brother, have been expecting this. You can’t afford to let yourself know it, that Gremots are getting most (or part, allowing for spillage and breakage) of their investment back. They own half the Vanguard. No, you can’t even let yourself know that Cookesville money is politics, not benevolence. You’re a knight whose dame had that dragon slayed before you thought of asking.

“It’s a grand world, when we all help out and do our parts.”

Lawrence eyed him.

“I’m helping you, brother. Have you ever helped me?”

“Gave you a chance to eat for nothing and steal off Mary?”

“Well, now, there’s a place to start. I have to wonder if she took against me because her husband taught her.”

“What! I never badmouthed you.”

“But you have. You know you do.”

Lawrence muttered, “Better shut up”, and after a thought, “ I’m going.”

“Lawrence, I’m a playactor. Let me play the role of a Rutherford waiter.” Getting to his feet, he blocked his brother and swung an invisible door, giving the character Allen’s French accent. “Is that you, Meester Everard? Meester Everard, we are today shorthanded. You cannot recommend a man, someone who has need of work, to sweep ze floors and wash ze dishes…”

Richard broke, grinning. “Give up, brother. That’s some look you got on your face… Think you know what I’m talking about?”

“You’re lazy. You drink. You walk off whatever time you feel like it.”

“That’ll do.”

“I’m not badmouthing. I wouldn’t say that to…”

“No! You wouldn’t say that. Just stand there like a bump on a log, and talking about your own brother, folks wonder why. Why you won’t say something good. And see…it harms me.”

181

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred seventy)

(2024, Stephanie Foster)