Obscurity, The Thirty-Sixth Chapter
In which things go awry at the philanthropist's wedding.
e last read The Thirty-Fifth Chapter, in which a gentle haunting awaited the widow. If you have recently joined us, start with The Prologue.

The wedding was stunning. The bride’s gown immaculate upon the alter, the bishop holding his hand over them in blessing, the open air hung with boughs of palm leaves and ferns, the stars petering in from on high. It was as a castle upon a cloud. A dream within a dream.
But if the wedding was a treat for the eyes, the feast that anteceded it was a triumph of execution. In a matter of moments pews were removed from the cathedral and tables filled it as though they had been waiting outside the cathedral for that cherished moment and then arrived at the party to provide the most elegant sustenance for it.
Each table was the perfect still life. A tableau of the most perfect oranges the eyes could behold—dewy as though picked that very morning, their leaves still attached and framing them in splendor. There were apricots from some far-off continent and plums burnt with brown sugar. Large vases were filled with confectionaries and dusted with slivered almonds.
Orange oyster shells filled with the shallow fruits of the Mississippi invited slurpers to become sea drunk on otherworldly urchins, searching among those treasures for a pearl or two to take home as a parting gift. A baked variety padded those creatures with butter and garnished them with parsley or tucked them into a bed of fromage bleu for richer dreams with far flung fantasies.
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