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

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

(part one hundred ninety-six)

Not wanting a cat in the house and not caring for dogs, she had ended up with vermin—as a neighbor had buttonholed Papa over. “Mice, one after another in a row, out of that shed and right in under the clapboard. Sickening to look at.”

Mrs. Frame, who smelled poorly (in the nasal sense), had told Mother, “Lord help me, I can’t look after all this house.”

Mother and Papa boarded Mrs. Frame, and hired the repairs done. This introduction of one outsider after another had been an embarrassment; there was no standard of cleanliness and decency the Gremots did not uphold. Pearletta Clark, Rubee, and the Johnson girl, Anna, came to scrub, top to bottom. The rooms were fresh-papered, the rugs and curtains new.

And Élucide, whose life in town made the only practical answer, now owned the house. Papa had deeded it to her, on Kinaelty’s advice.  (“A woman without a husband.” Silence from Mother and Papa at the Sunday table. “And then the vagaries…” Kinaelty added, “as one never knows where the Lord will find us, from one day to the next.” Papa, with a glance aside: “Give our daughter room to act on her own initiative.”)

The papers were signed, Dancer with his stall at Ziegler’s Livery, the buggy hers to summon at will. The neighbor had said over the fence, “Miss, I got a cat you can have. No mouser like one with kittens to nurse.”

Besides Lorna and her sons Bruce and Charles, Élucide had Mrs. Frame back. But Mrs. Frame was not helpless; merely by nature adrift. A hand on the helm, a task pointed to…small, short, familiar—and Mrs. Frame could be a treasure. She was seventy-two, hands sound for needlework, a diligent gardener, baker, and sweeper. A presence for answering doors when Élucide was at Crownhaven.

“But Purdy…or Peavey… I know that’s not it. I sent him Ebrach’s address, so we’ll all meet at Crownhaven.”

“Phelan,” said Weem. “Irish, file under P. Crownhaven sounds good sense.”

“Just how long have you got? Or did your editor actually…?”

“Notice I wasn’t there?”

“I was going to say, tell you to send a sample of your work sometime.”

 Weem hunched over his banana cake with a face, for Mariette, of theatrical slyness. “I got leeway. Nice to learn how you handle the poor slobs, though, come begging with ink-stained fingers clutching a few tattered…”

“Lord.”

Before seeing his room, Phelan had used a lobby writing-desk, to compose a courteous little note. The courteous little note was a follow-up to a telegram; the telegram had come during Phelan’s change of trains at Vincennes. Élucide had sent a random boy—a few ever loitering the streets in hopes of it—with a nickel’s pay, and a note for Owen.

209

Bedlam

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

(2025, Stephanie Foster)