All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred twenty-five)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

 

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

 

(part two hundred twenty-five)

 

 

 

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And then, contrary to your tendency…

I went back the other way, taking the near stairs after all, because they would not allow me to go forward.

They. This was some impression you had?

No, of course. One of the stewards hovered, and when Miss McGhee and I pressed ahead, ahemmed at us, and said there had been yet another accident, and so forth.

So forth.

The steward supplied phrases, he did not tell us a woman had fallen. He suggested nothing whatever that would make me suppose what at the time had seemed impossible. I say ‘so forth’ in reference to all that, not in reference to my wife, sir.

You accompanied Miss McGhee up the stairs to the A deck. Between leaving the bar and retiring inside your cabin, did you meet with any person other than this steward and Miss McGhee?

I think not. But immediately I think so, or why’st thou look so keen?

A university habit, affecting Shakespeare.

A personal opinion, infecting your method. But we cannot all pick up university habits.

Manfred had baited Monaghan. No whiff, Élucide supposed, of a noose waiting for him.

Miss McGhee, Monaghan prompted, noticed something of her surroundings.

[Demrose rising to pour what appeared seltzer water. Did not offer.]

Sterling girl. But I’m at a loss.

That’s near Rathdowney, the family seat. McGurthen Hall, do they call it?

Change of topic? All right, then. Presumably they did, the first owners. I doubt my brother cares to change it, curses being what they are. But my brother and I do not correspond. Is this material to you, Monaghan? Does the Land League’s arm reach so far?

A steward you can’t name blocked your passage up the usual stairs. Did you walk those few steps in ignorance and find yourself surprised?

When I write my memoirs, I shall certainly title them, A Walk in Ignorance. The spark you were hoping to light…I do believe… Was it a sweaty youth in ship’s uniform, who had panted by Miss McGhee and myself at a rush?

 

“Do you put up with that sort of thing?” Élucide’s father asked.

“I do, sir, allow a widower his small comforts.”

“And do you find that anyone, whether or not you suspect him, can well account for his movements days past?”

“Oh, the typical fellow can account for more than Saint Peter at Heaven’s gate, as to did a thing occur, or did he dream it? Or did he hear of it, and finds it apter than the truth, or did he invent it as doing himself more credit than the truth… You understand me, sir.”

 

 

237

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred twenty-six)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2025, Stephanie Foster)