All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred ninety)

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

(part one hundred ninety)

“I am your ancient enemy, a Dutchman. I have got my Quackenbush ancestors back to the time of Phillip of Spain. Gremot is uncommon, so ought to prove either impossible or very easy.”

The Walloons, he told her, had been founders of America. “Not much talked about. Territory of Nova Belgica, capital New Amsterdam…eh? You’ve heard of that, at least. Settled by French Netherlanders. Netherlanders they were, Belgians fighting for independence 1830, your grandfather having immigrated 1824.”

“And Honoré’s father seems not to have fought. They were farmers.”

“How does your cousin pronounce Gremot? That may be a clue to the original spelling.”

“Just, Gremot.”

“Clan Rutherford, now, has a significant presence among the Scotch. But Rutherford is your married name.”

Fannie, drained of personal information after the boat (and after Quackenbush’s ordering from a restaurant, even while they were an hour late arriving), wearily said: “My maiden name is Diksen.” She spelled it.

“Danish.”

“Well, my grandparents spoke German. Or I thought they did.”

“Now regarding your grandmother, Miss Gremot. The missing Lisette. Alain had traveled with others through the Carolinas and Tennessee, you tell me? I am going to say a word to you, which I hope will not offend. Melungeon.”

The word did not offend, as it was new. But she was not going to gratify his hope. “What would that mean, in terms of finding her?”

“That there may be no records. I will send out my many letters, of course, to the parishes and the counties. And now, I will show you the house, and offer you a book or two…”

On the train returning, Fannie said, “You gave him too much.”

“But I need things to read. I like histories.”

Some were prettily antique, and would sit with a certain glamour on the shelf. The library was Le Beau’s, in crates. Le Beau was dead. “I didn’t bother corresponding on that point with Thatcher. I’d assumed you would want to meet with me before the year’s end, if not the decade’s. Here… Yorkshire and Lancashire, 1821, researched by a Dervin Crenshaw, for those tracing their descent from the Wars of the Roses. Crenshaw and Cranshaw are both Lancashire names. You may find a Millshaw. Your Millshays were from some part of England. That was their way of speaking, and that was how it got set down.”

Fannie scanned the carriage, and spoke low. “A baby at fifty-four! I don’t quite believe it. Bless her heart, but more than one thing can cause bleeding down there.”

203

Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred ninety-one)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)