The O'Rourke Tales VOL. 1

[Marilyn Monroe 362]

 

Jeanne's Entourage, 1793.

 

An oncoming coach splashed mud out from under its rimmed wheels. The heavy cab was hauled by four gleaming white stallions decorated in red leather reins, which were tugged nearly every second. Two coachmen, drowned in thick layers of red silk and blanketed in gabardine drill, sat miserably up on the driver’s box in the downpour of the Kaedreni rain. The entourage was an odd one, the elaborately painted carriage was certainly a display of opulence and excess, but the passengers inside were certainly dissidents. 

 

Madame Jeanne O’Rourke, and her latest product of illegitimacy, Adalene, sat across from each other in the silk lined interior, each garbed in rich purple cloaks, each staying to themselves. 

 

The painted Madame O’Rourke gleamed as she looked beyond the dripping window out into the rolling hills of the countryside. It was unknown what her thoughts were. But the solemn look expressed on her face told it all. 

 

It was up on Mont Catherine that the immense game of trickery was about to begin. Passing by the dilapidated O’Rourke House, Jeanne only stared at what was her epicenter of happiness. She raised her children there; she had her grand wedding reception in its great hall. The crumbling brownstone walls only expressed scorn at its wavering owner fleeting by. However, as the rickety coach began to swoon itself up on the muddy slopes of the mountain, a cardboard luggage case would abruptly snap from the leather straps and burst open on the ground. 

 

The rain suddenly stopped. 

 

Expressing herself in a nonchalant way, Jeanne motioned to a tassel hanging from the coach ceiling, pulling it. The wheels of the carriage seemed to freeze instantaneously. Adalene sat, hands clasped together in her lap, her pale gray eyes which lay on her pale face only darted forwards towards her mother’s Manhattan boots. The whiplash only made the poor girl shunt herself back against the wall of the cab. 

 

Jeanne plopped open the door with a drag of her finger against it, and thrust herself into the misty air. She jumped right into the mud, shoes soiled. 

 

“Zis. Is. Disgusting…” She’d say, in her thick Auverginian accent. Inside, Adalene suppressed a laugh with her white gloved hand. 

 

“Mother- it is only a few stockings in that trunk, we can merely leave it for some peasants!” Adalene squealed. 

 

Jeanne’s face darted back to her bastard. “Oui… but there is a small token I need from this.” 

 

Confused, Adalene averted her eyes to some other direction. 

 

The painted lady picked up her feet towards the open suitcase, the weight of the sticky mud assimilating with cinder blocks. Sifting through the dirtied silken remains, she found what she was looking for, a small turquoise leather box that contained a picture of a gray man with a sunken face. Quickly, she stuffed the box into a swag of her skirt and re-entered the coach. 

 

The sky turned darker. The fog rolled over the hills. The carriage was encompassed. 

 

Reins were yanked again, and the coach sped up the mountain once again. 

 

“Help! Help!” Somebody cried from up the road. It was a man, a very lanky pale man, dressed in burlap. 

 

The carriage sloshed on, until it got to the man, where it stopped suddenly with no motion from Jeanne. “Hello! Hel-” He was cut off. The mud splashing out from under the carriage consumed the man. 

 

“Lo..”  He tried to continue under the thick brown mask. 

 

Jeanne merely poked her painted face out from the drapery of her hood, a scowl formed when she saw a person of extreme filth. 

 

“What- are you?” She’d observe.

 

“I need aid, please, do you have a mark or two to-” He’d begin to speak such, being cut off by Jeanne.

 

“Non merci, monsieur. We are not in the mood for giving welfare.” She’d state, blankly, throwing a piece of slimy, half eaten chicken out at the man from her picnic basket. 

 

“Auverginians…” The lanky man began with a wave of his skeletal hand. “Little chien.” 

 

“Oh!” Jeanne responded, bending her hand, resting her two digits on her left hand over her exposed chest. “At least I am not covered in mud.” She motioned her other hand, now clasping a fan, and smacked it against the ceiling of the coach. “Move on!” 

 

A snap of the red reins could be heard, and the coach slid out of sight into the fog, engulfed.

 

“Mother..” Adalene muttered. “You can’t just be mea-.” 

 

“Oh hush up!” The painted one exclaimed, smacking her daughter dead across the cheek.

Sitting back down, Jeanne would snap open the fan, and gracefully fanned herself while overlooking the sea. 

 

Adalene, clearly used to this treatment, simply hushed herself and reverted to her silent composure.

 

The coach rocked on over the mountain to the docks. The air began to sink, the sky turning to a thick black atmosphere.