*2 To Go or Not to Go
Two days earlier: Saturday, August 3, 2013
London, England
There was nothing physically wrong with him, but James was miserable. He was emotionally exhausted, and felt as if he had just endured six months of intestinal flu, with boils and a case of jock itch thrown in just to make sure he was as worn down as much as humanly possible.
By all that was sane or usual, he should still be in honeymoon mode—frisky and fondling the blonde beauty he had married after a whirlwind courtship—not protecting himself both physically and financially from her. Thefts, graft, slander. She never seemed to run out of ammunition for her assaults on everything he had or was.
He realized now that the marriage had been a sham from the beginning. As soon as the ‘I do’s’ were exchanged, she began shunning him. Although she eventually allowed him to consummate the marriage, he never had a decent wedding night with her, or even an adequate afternoon quickie.
All aspects of his existence were a mess because of her. He had done all he could to reclaim his former wonderfully-boring-but-financially-secure-life, and now it was time for the professionals to take over. His solicitor’s office was doing everything legally possible to protect him from further virtual assaults, and hopefully they could reverse the recent damages. She had contrived to empty all of their joint accounts, and now her fleet of hired vultures was seeking every last asset he had or hoped to have.
James needed distraction, any task would suffice, but a potentially profitable one in a foreign country, far away from the carrion-consuming crew’s prying eyes, would be best.
The owner of the small American company had pursued him for three months now. For some reason he—or would that be she?—really wanted him to buy the historic mill near Greensboro, North Carolina. By the numbers, this would be an easy, ‘Thank you for the offer, but we are not interested at this time,’ response for purchase of the modest American textile company. He had left a message for the owner two months ago, tactfully explaining that this venture really wasn’t what he was looking for. That hadn’t slowed down the communiqués, though. Every other week, he received more pictures and the latest figures, always with a personal note attached. He should have been firmer with his refusal, and request that the proposals cease, but now he was glad that there was a diversion for him. Yes, it looked like America was calling louder all the time, and now was a good time to answer.
Numbers don’t show everything of value here. Just come by and visit the mill. I’m sure you will then agree that this would be a great investment/acquisition for you.
Regards, Bibb
Bibb. What kind of name was that? He had never been able to speak with Bibb on the phone. All correspondence had been via post or email. His request for a videoconference had been gently rejected in such a way that further appeals would have been discourteous. Was Bibb a man or a woman? The handwriting was firm and open, not sloppy or inconsistent. That in itself showed honesty and self-assuredness. You can’t judge a book by its cover, or a company by the hard numbers from what this note was saying. However, a strong hand meant something, he rationalized. It sounded like a trip to America was in order.
His passport was still valid, at least he was fairly certain it was. “Better check it out. That’s all I need,” James said to the portrait on the wall, “to show up at Heathrow with expired papers.”
He swung the oil painting of great-grandpa-so-many-times-over Lord Anthony ‘Tony’ Melbourne away from the wall to reveal the safe. He dialed in the combination: 1-8-5, his IQ on the Mensa entrance exam. Clotilde would never figure out that one. She was so dim that she had to be prompted on how to address a dinner invitation. “I guess that’s why she’s so fond of credit cards. She needs help to write a check, but can manage to scrawl a ‘C’ with a curlicue tail on a slip of paper.”
And there it was. The passport was still in its plastic bag, right on top of the bundle of mysterious old letters that were still tied together with a faded blue ribbon.
Those letters. Grandpa said they weren’t to be opened until when? He remembered it was the 21st century, but couldn’t recall which year. It seemed like forever when he heard about them as a child. He thought he’d be an old man before he was allowed to read them. He had agreed not to snoop, though. It was the principle of honor involved, after all. The Melbourne family valued honor more than any other concept. I guess it could be said that they prided themselves on how honorable they were. Obviously, having a lot of, or too much, pride was not a problem for them. All that mattered was honor.
“Do the honorable deed, and it will come back to bless you—repay you, if you will—many times over, but only if done selflessly. A good deed done with greed as motivation is null and void, or worse,” Grandpa would lecture. Then he’d add his own take on the family rule: “‘Twill come back to bite ye on the arse, sure as sin,” he’d mimic in a broad Scots accent.
He never tired of hearing Grandpa’s stories, even though they seemed to get a bit more colorful with every retelling. The tale of the fairies who helped draft the Magna Carta had to be out and out fabrication, but Grandpa had such a way with words, blending facts James had learned in school and knew to be true with fantasies worthy of a Hugo Award.
The stories of Great-grandpa Lord Anthony Melbourne and his heroics in the Second Uprising were admirable but boring. He didn’t have the excitement and mystery that surrounded his younger brother, Lord Julian Hart, who had disappeared in America during the Revolutionary War. Maybe that’s why James always kept Uncle Julian’s portrait with him wherever he lived or went to school: he was fascinated by the rumors, mystery, and intrigue.
“Speaking of intrigue, what’s the status of that passport? I’d better check before I get distracted again,” he said to the portrait.
James had ADD, attention deficit disorder, or so he had been told. “Nah,” he replied to his own unspoken thought. “I just don’t want to focus on only one project at a time. I’d miss out on too much that way,” he rationalized aloud.
However, that was not how his teachers felt. “He’ll never accomplish anything,” they’d say. “A straight path is the shortest route to one’s goal.” They suggested, almost insisted, that he be medicated, but Grandpa refused.
“Don’t worry about it,” Grandpa would soothe. “Don’t live your life to please them or anyone else. It’s your life to live, and you should choose, or better still, make your own road, no matter how meandering or long it may be. When I was young, the saying was, ‘If it feels good, do it.’ I would say the same to you with the caveat that ‘do it’ as long as it doesn’t hurt others, or yourself.”
James turned the bag over in his hand. He kept the passport in a zip top plastic bag just in case something spilled in his travel bag or he got caught in a downpour or “I fall in a lake,” he joked to Grandpa.
“Can you imagine these bags two hundred, even one hundred, years ago?” Grandpa asked. “People would think they were magic, maybe conjured up by a witch. Right handy, though, aye?” Grandfather was always putting a spin on the common items in their lives, encouraging James to appreciate all the simple, modern-day treasures most people took for granted.
Focus, man: what’s the date! James pulled out the passport. Great, it didn’t expire until 2016; three more years left on it. “Hey! Here’s that little Greek coin from my trip to North Carolina last year.” The man at the rare coin store had only offered him £100 for it. The online rate was a little more or less, depending on the buyer. He had decided he’d rather keep the token that had come with the purchase of the stolen Revolutionary War document than admit the financial blunder.
“Another poor investment,” his father had chided. “When will you learn?” James had disappointed him again.
James removed the rose-themed business card from inside the passport book. “Dani Madigan,” he said aloud. “Sweet little old lady. Hey, I wonder if she knows that her first name is scrambled into her last. Probably d
oes—she seemed pretty bright.”
There was no telling how that fiasco with the map, the coin, and that strange little old man—Simon without a second name—would have turned out last autumn if she hadn’t interceded. She was from Alaska, visiting Greensboro, and had no interest in the matter, but had stepped in and acted as mediator for the two men.
James soon found out that the ‘historical document’ he had purchased earlier that day from a shaggy-haired man in period dress, just outside the Gilford Courthouse, was not a record of soldiers or regiments involved in a Revolutionary War battle with Great Uncle Julian as the homespun-clan man had alluded to. What the velvet bag actually contained was a parchment map. It appeared old, and made no sense. It was hand drawn in black ink with exotic—or encrypted—symbols, and had no reference key.
Evidently the document had been stolen from Simon—the uptight old coot in a black frock coat that Dani had rescued from the side of the road earlier that same day. The odd-looking man was passionate about the chart with the strange writing, and probably would have done anything to get it back. Thank goodness, he didn’t have a gun or knife. Since there was nothing on the map that James was interested in, he negotiated a deal. Simon could have the map, and he would keep the silver coin that had been hidden, threaded on a cord, tucked inside the velvet sheath.
James set the card down and picked up the Athena and Pegasus struck silver coin with the two small holes drilled in it. Well, it may not be worth much, but it would make a sweet little pendant. I’d better hide it before Clotilde finds it and makes off with it, too. He stuffed the coin deep into the corner of his hemp fabric wallet. “Stay put—I might need you later,” he said aloud to the silver token.
He picked up the card again. “I wonder how Dani’s doing. If I’m going all the way to America to check out that mill, I might as well take a side trip to see her in Alaska. Beautiful summers, great fishing…maybe she knows of a charter service that lands on glaciers. What’s the name of that tall mountain—McKinley is it?—or do they call it by its native name now, Denali? Either way, a trip with good company, fresh air, and lots of frozen blue water would be a great distraction.
And now was a great time for a holiday. There might not be much left of the Melbourne family fortune after Clotilde was done suing him for divorce. He might as well enjoy it until the judgment was decided. If her solicitors got their way, she’d have it all. Well, maybe she wouldn’t get it all, but she was sure to get at least half, if not more, of the property and monies. She had a fleet of solicitors working on commission, and now there was the sudden absence of their prenup.
Even though there had been a pre-nuptial agreement, all the copies had mysteriously disappeared. He couldn’t believe there wasn’t a record of it, so went to the registrar to look for it himself. As it turned out, Clotilde had been there first. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the clerk had just said, “Nope, nothing here. Sorry you made the trip,” but that smirk! And the snide remark that went with it, “Are you sure there was a prenuptial? Clotilde, er, Lady Melbourne, came by earlier, and we couldn’t find it for her either.”
Well, between her insincere ‘sorry,’ and the way the woman was twisting the pearl and diamond pendant he had given Clotilde months earlier as a gift, rather an enticement, he was sure there was complicity. Price for filing a pre-nuptial agreement: £10. Price for absconding with the duly-filed copy of same agreement: one diamond and pearl necklace.
Maybe not all was lost. He couldn’t prove Clotilde had stolen the document, but the agreement was referred to in their marriage contract. Hopefully that would hold sway in court, even if the original couldn’t be found.
Grandpa had warned him about her, but he had been ‘truly, deeply, madly in love’ with Clotilde. He should have believed Grandpa when he told him that he was only ‘truly, deeply, madly in lust’ with the hot little blonde.
James shuddered at the thought of her and the impact she had made on his life. “It’s only stuff and money,” he reminded himself aloud, trying to rationalize the additional losses he was sure to incur. “She can’t take my breath away—at least, not anymore—now that my eyes are truly open. And she can’t steal my joy. I can still find happiness in the larks, roses, and butterflies that enhance the beauty of a warm summer’s day. She has to live with herself, not me. Thank You, Lord, for that!”
Roses, rose card, remember to contact Dani… It’s probably oh-my-gawd-thirty in Alaska right now. So, send an email—fast and unobtrusive—and there for her to read when she’s ready. Remember Grandpa used to say, ‘Two hundred, even one hundred, years ago, who would have believed we could communicate so quickly? Sending pictures over the airwaves and bouncing invisible information—letters, pictures, even movies—off of artificial moons? It would be considered magic or, even worse, diabolical.’
Yes, I appreciate the speed of life, Grandpa—at least parts of life. If the electronic age hadn’t been so fast, though, I wouldn’t be missing all the money from our joint checking account.
Clotilde wasn’t supposed to have his password. Grandpa’s idea of making sure two passwords were used to access their personal funds was great. It’s just that neither one of them suspected that Clotilde was a thief, or that she had a brother who was a computer guru. For a brother, though, he sure didn’t look like her.
James shook his head, trying to erase the bad thought that was creeping in. Brother or boyfriend—what difference did it make? The divorce would be final on Monday, and she could do—er, rather be with—whomever she wanted. At least she hadn’t given him an STD. Actually, after they were legally married, she had had a perpetual headache. Ugh, the thought of being intimate with that two-faced gold digger literally made him sick to his stomach.
James went to the bathroom cabinet and moved the bottles around, looking for the pink stuff he had bought for indigestion. And, there it was under the bottle—a little slip of paper in Clotilde’s writing—and on it was the combination to the wall safe.
He grabbed the note and the antacid, gulping the bellyache medicine right from the bottle, not bothering with the little plastic cup. He went to his desk and got his note pad and all the pens he could find. He methodically wrote the number eight with each pen, setting each writing implement next to its written numeral, then compared the colors of the inks on the tablet to the one on the scrap of paper. Which pen had she used? Of course, she used the engraved Lamy 2000 pen that Grandpa had given him for Christmas. He smoothed out her little crib note. Let’s see. A stroke here and a curve there, and that’s now a four and not a one, a six instead of a five. 1-8-5 was now modified to a combination of 4-8-6. Let’s see her try and open it with those numbers!
Before he closed the safe, he wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else he needed in there. Those mysterious letters—they didn’t need to spend any more time in there. Whether they were valuable or not made no difference to him. He just didn’t want Clotilde’s slimy paws on the decades old—no, make that centuries old—documents.
He took out the bundle and turned it over. Yup, they hadn’t been disturbed. It didn’t appear that the thin blue ribbon had ever been removed or retied. No creases were visible, and the ends were frayed and bent in the same odd directions. Evidently she hadn’t seen any value in his family’s history.
He reached further back and found it. The long, fat manila envelope was still there. Okay, looks weren’t everything. James removed the envelope and unwound the dark red string that secured the flap. He blew into the slot, popped it open, and dumped out the cash. Only it wasn’t currency inside anymore. It was the Sunday comics, cut up into pound-sized notes. He laughed aloud. He hadn’t realized that Clotilde had a sense of humor. He had been wrong about that, too. The funny papers for making the funny money. Not bad, Clotilde, not bad.
He carefully replaced the phony money in the envelope and returned it to the safe in the same spot. He reached further back and found the old wooden cigar box. He set it on the desk, flipped open the
lid, and sniffed the fat Cuban cigars, wrinkling his nose at the musty scent that still lingered. He never understood why people smoked—tobacco or anything else—but Grandpa’s ruse was beneficial. Clotilde had had no interest in the contents of the stinky carton.
He removed all the desiccated and flaky rolls of tobacco leaves, lifted up the corrugated cream-colored paper divider, and took out the three old hard packs of Marlboro ‘cigarettes.’ He flipped open the top of the first one and dumped the contents into his hand. The flag jewels: rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. Well, only a few diamonds were left, but there were still quite a few rubies and sapphires, and they were all of high quality. The second box, for menthol cigarettes, held what he called the forest jewels: emeralds and yellow topazes of three-carat-plus size. Topazes weren’t as valuable per se, but their large size would fetch a good price from a reputable dealer. Last, but not least, the box for unfiltered cigarettes. This is where Grandpa kept what he called his babies. They were decent-sized and, although there were only three of each, they were perfect—flawless baby blue and soft pink-hued diamonds. The family jewels were kept in old cigarette packs in a vintage cigar box, stashed in the back of the family vault.
She really was dumb. Didn’t she know that cigars were supposed to be kept at room temperature in a humidor, not in a flimsy box in a cold safe? She must have actually believed Grandpa when he said that he kept his tobacco locked up so he wouldn’t start smoking again. Well, James thought, he might have to pretend to take up that bad habit himself.
He combined the contents of all the cigarette packs into the menthol box and put it in his inside jacket pocket. Hmm…I guess I’ll consider this my smoking jacket. He placed the two empty packs of cigarettes, paper divider, and the flaky cigars back into the box and returned it to the safe. The bundle of ribbon-tied letters fit perfectly in his outer jacket pocket. Sweet little old Dani’s rosy business card went into his wallet, next to the Greek coin, and then it and the passport went into his pocket. He was almost ready to roll.
Aye, I am a Fairy (The Fairies Saga Book 2) Page 2