Calipatria
Sep. 11th, 2010 06:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegunicentThis is the start or premise to a story I never really got around to writing, but that I tend to play with a lot.
“She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or who imagines life must be full of emergencies.”
– Mavis Gallant
Father Leon Calhoun was a good old Irish Catholic. Old Irish. Except for the old English on his mother's side. An English that traced itself in a straight line to Richard the First, the Lionhearted. Before his father had brought them to the fertile lands of the New World and they'd left the lands of their ancestors behind, Father Leon had a different name, and titles to his knees, none of which he'd ever earned, nor his parents, nor even his grandparents. Lands and property enough to make a young man quite the catch in any European court, wars and politics aside.
But that was a different lifetime. The Boylan's settled into the New World, Lord Boylan seeking adventure and his young wife seeking a better, easier life for her three young children. The Lord met his end in Washington at the end of a duelors pistol, and the Lady died of consumption when her children were still too young to care for themselves. Into the Church they went. Properly educated, Leon left at the ripe old age of sixteen to fight for his adoptive country and prove himself a man in the Mexican War. He came back broken hearted and soul scarred, renounced his legacy and donated much of his inheritance to the Church, retaining a few minor holdings and the family crypt in Ireland for his sisters.
Eleanor, or Lady El, was a bright child, but sickly and mentally unwell. Rather than let her languish in a convent, Leon took her and his younger sister Rowan to California. The weather was good for their health the physicians said. Rowan, who was not old enough to remember their parents with fondness, dreamed of the royal courts and lavish lifestyle her brother had forsaken, and vowed to return to society one day. El became her brother's cross, a violent tempered witch of a woman dependent on laudanum and soothing syrups just to get through the day. Leon cared for her in every way, from bathing to singing her to sleep, to nursing her through frequent bouts of hysteria, nausea and suicidal depression.
They settled into Calipatria, a small town with a missionary church emptied by the war, and a modest home with two bedrooms and a kitchen. Until she married, Rowan was bound to her brother for her share of the family fortune, and never forgot that she came from a better world than he'd relegated them to.
For his part, Leon tried to put his past and inheritance behind him, content to care for the only people who were left to him. He was not a man fit for the ugly world of Society and Politics, no matter the legacy left in his veins.
“You should put her where she can get some real doctoren Padre.”
“One of those asylums?! Le mo shaol!* That's my sister we're talking about!”
“How could you do it?!
“She made strawberry rhubarb pie. Sin a rud a rinne mo chabhóg.*”
“Uhm, sorry Father?”
“A Dhia dhilis!*”
“Bí ar d'fhaichill air.*”
“Always am.”
“Na faigh bás.*”
“I don't intend to.”
1)never in my life
2)It was my undoing
3)My God!
4)Beware of him.
5)Don't die.
All the foreign language is Irish Gaelic.
“She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or who imagines life must be full of emergencies.”
– Mavis Gallant
Father Leon Calhoun was a good old Irish Catholic. Old Irish. Except for the old English on his mother's side. An English that traced itself in a straight line to Richard the First, the Lionhearted. Before his father had brought them to the fertile lands of the New World and they'd left the lands of their ancestors behind, Father Leon had a different name, and titles to his knees, none of which he'd ever earned, nor his parents, nor even his grandparents. Lands and property enough to make a young man quite the catch in any European court, wars and politics aside.
But that was a different lifetime. The Boylan's settled into the New World, Lord Boylan seeking adventure and his young wife seeking a better, easier life for her three young children. The Lord met his end in Washington at the end of a duelors pistol, and the Lady died of consumption when her children were still too young to care for themselves. Into the Church they went. Properly educated, Leon left at the ripe old age of sixteen to fight for his adoptive country and prove himself a man in the Mexican War. He came back broken hearted and soul scarred, renounced his legacy and donated much of his inheritance to the Church, retaining a few minor holdings and the family crypt in Ireland for his sisters.
Eleanor, or Lady El, was a bright child, but sickly and mentally unwell. Rather than let her languish in a convent, Leon took her and his younger sister Rowan to California. The weather was good for their health the physicians said. Rowan, who was not old enough to remember their parents with fondness, dreamed of the royal courts and lavish lifestyle her brother had forsaken, and vowed to return to society one day. El became her brother's cross, a violent tempered witch of a woman dependent on laudanum and soothing syrups just to get through the day. Leon cared for her in every way, from bathing to singing her to sleep, to nursing her through frequent bouts of hysteria, nausea and suicidal depression.
They settled into Calipatria, a small town with a missionary church emptied by the war, and a modest home with two bedrooms and a kitchen. Until she married, Rowan was bound to her brother for her share of the family fortune, and never forgot that she came from a better world than he'd relegated them to.
For his part, Leon tried to put his past and inheritance behind him, content to care for the only people who were left to him. He was not a man fit for the ugly world of Society and Politics, no matter the legacy left in his veins.
“You should put her where she can get some real doctoren Padre.”
“One of those asylums?! Le mo shaol!* That's my sister we're talking about!”
“How could you do it?!
“She made strawberry rhubarb pie. Sin a rud a rinne mo chabhóg.*”
“Uhm, sorry Father?”
“A Dhia dhilis!*”
“Bí ar d'fhaichill air.*”
“Always am.”
“Na faigh bás.*”
“I don't intend to.”
1)never in my life
2)It was my undoing
3)My God!
4)Beware of him.
5)Don't die.
All the foreign language is Irish Gaelic.
