“…So you see, I couldn’t bear to come see it. Oh, Jennie, poor Jennie, she needed so much love and support today, make no mistake, but she had all of her family there, every one. I would not have wanted to be in the way, as it were…”
Not on account of anything Susan was saying, I was aroused to anger – and not for the first time that day. Truth, embellished truth, or something in-between coming out of Susan’s mouth, James Morneau did have a family. He perpetrated his crime to put shoes on a boy’s feet.
“Ask him!” Susan reached across the table and struck me as close to the back of the head as she could manage. “Ask him!” she hissed, or as near to a hiss as you can get whilst saying ask him! She pointed at a tall, wobbly young man who had loped into the tavern, passed us, and was leaning against a wall, profile toward me, looking confused at Mme. Graveau.
I had not lived 34 years and been married without being able to reach back and tease out what a woman had said even when I hadn’t been listening. Susan averred that perhaps the loping man had been at Tyburn Square today, and would be able to testify to the fact of Jennie Morneau’s oldest children being present, and bare of foot.
Had I said something I was thinking, aloud? It was a tic afflicting me since meeting Susan. The alternative, that she could read my mind, was too frightening to consider.
“Susan, I’ve no doubt your friend” – she sputtered at that description. I seemed not to be meant to know they were acquainted. But I pressed on – “your friend, I’ve seen him before, with you, I don’t know what you’re getting excited about! Listen.”