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

All Bedlam Courses Past

Chapter Eight

Things Relative

(part two hundred twenty-seven)

Myra would have Alarica. On an income of two thousand a year, maintain it.

“How much capital?” Élucide asked.

“In the neighborhood of one million dollars.”

“And so, in the neighborhood of eight, ten thousand…?” her father asked.

“With a strict program of economizing, Mr. Demrose may avoid touching the capital further, thus to live in comfort on the interest and a few rents. Some of the properties are untenanted acreage. Minus, also, what the estate will owe to Miss Buckley.”

By the second will, Master Demrose became heir to Alarica.

No [Myra’s statement], Mother was always frank, in all things. But that won’t do, frank can’t be the word. She could not see, I’m sure I’ve given you this impression by now, arguments against what she had set her mind to. She could not see them. Taking Alarica away from me, and thank God if she had, was not possibly an insult, as Mother reasoned it. Or a betrayal. Whatever makes people so unforgiving over…carnival prizes, if you like…

No, Mr. Shute, I mean the courtroom trials I read about in the newspapers, or one in particular, where the stepdaughter had been given a necklace as a gift, and the son’s wife felt entitled to have inherited it…do you recall? Never mind, then. Alarica is a considerable property. But my father had built his house in the fifties. And in those days, it did not cost so much to have the grounds tended, the fires and lamps lit in all the rooms, the dusting and the sweeping, the cooking. I’ll be letting the few servants we have go, and I’ll sell it for a song. With any luck before the taxes. Because Alarica cannot be kept in good repair, and naturally there are no gas fittings, no water from the tap. You would rather see me dab tears behind the mourning veil, than count costs and complain.

Not at all, an unconvincing Shute answered. He judged not.

But you see, I was my father’s daughter. The line was in some way maintained. Of course, a son would have been preferred. I have never doubted my mother’s word on that—and yes, Mr. Shute, she said it to me. She would have been astonished if I were wounded by such remarks. I wasn’t. I don’t know how to make this any plainer…the Buckley heir would be an adopted stranger, and my father would have his estate carried on in his father-in-law’s name, and all that would be somehow my father’s directive from the afterlife. Forgive me for not explaining to you reincarnation, but the adopted child could be an ancestor, reborn, and by divine knowledge sent to Mother…and so, family after all. If you can grasp that Mother believed in spirits, in the rebirth of souls, perhaps you can see how, when I say she reasoned, there is truly a thread. Now do you understand why she could not be talked out of any scheme she had attached herself to?

“And now, Mr. Ebrach, recalling your own impressions,” Monaghan said.

“Spiritualism is a faith. It is like yours.”

Monaghan’s small mouth went to one side. “But you mean that Mrs. Demrose was a churchgoer, in a manner of speaking, and that the law regards the faiths alike.”

239

Bedlam

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

(2025, Stephanie Foster)