All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-seven)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

(part one hundred eighty-seven)

ii.

Nova Belgica

Two years past, liking herself as a woman who telegraphed, Élucide had telegraphed Mexico City, paying for it, expecting a short answer back. Her message was taken, and sent onwards through the post.

Weem had done his duty by Uncle George’s Tennessee paper—run the Cleveland Carrier’s budget out, and closed it. From Managua, Nicaragua, he returned her a card, two months later, stuck with exotic stamps. She gave these to Lawrence to give to Samuel.

No war yet. No canal yet. Le Beau had a house on Monroe Street. Let me write him and fix terms for you.

She had said to her mother, at a Sunday dinner: “So, for a few days, I won’t be in town.”

“But your friend has worked all this out for you? Where does he have you staying?”

Élucide had given a bright, coffee-sipping nod. “Dr. Quackenbush is not really a friend. Unless you could be thinking of William Thacker, but Mr. Thacker only made me the reference. Fannie and I have picked a house from the Fellows’ guide, called the Turnstile. Proprietor a Mr. Dowling…”

“Oh, I wasn’t really thinking of Dr. Quackenbush, if that’s what you called him. Wasn’t there another person? Never mind. You’ll have to tell me what you’ve learned. I know Virginia used to do picture trees for friends, with her watercolors. A Nashville genealogist must be a little elevated…over anything I’ve seen.”

Virginia had died. A sad, unexpected thing. Dr. Horace had found her facedown in her pansy row. He turned her, bent to her, picked her up, tried to carry her…shocked, Mother said. Sanderson, back from some errand, also was shocked, but took the body from Dr. Horace and laid her on the porch. She was stiffened yet, and the two doors needed stoppering, and it was a mental task to sort it all…

But Mother’s remark could bear this weight, suggest that Élucide’s pursuing what her parents preferred she did not was a fault of going fancy; at the same time, insulting to her godmother’s memory.

They left their cab and came to the street gate, finding it only latched. They climbed to the veranda. “I feel like we might get away with a tour of the house,” Élucide was saying to Fannie. “We might have to bluff a housekeeper. Now, walk down this way. I want you to see the ballroom, at least. It’s all glass on the outside…we can peek.”

At the balustrade, Élucide pointed the carriage house where she and Bérénice, old Bertrand and small Bertrand, had first encountered Alarica. Fannie pulled a brown canna from an urn and dropped it to the bed below. “I hate to see people leave things to die. Tidy up, add some gravel…”

At the head of the steps, the door opened. “Mr. Demrose saw you coming, Miss Gremot. Ma’am.”

“Oh… They’re home.”

“Mrs. Rutherford,” Fannie said.

200

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-eight)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)