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He could see her.
He recognized her golden hair.
If only he could get closer...
"You were nervous, I understand that. No hard feelings between us, right Jim?"
But Hamish held him back with an arm around his shoulder, the same way an anchor keeps a ship from drifting away. His annoying friendliness was getting on James' nerves, who tried desperately to have a better look of the Wonder.
To complicate things further, the piers were overcrowded that day due to the number of the trading ships that shared the Wonder's parting hour.
Then it happened.
The ship started to soar the waves.
The Wonder moved quickly.
James had to hurry.
"So Jim, have you thought about our plan? Bribing my father shall be easy. He is losing the grip of reality with every passing day, and his soft heart clouds his sensibility. Just look at how proud he is of seeing Kingsleigh going off to the sea, like the savage tomboy she's ever been. I can't believe he forced me to be here, after all the humiliation she put me through." Hamish twitched his mouth in disgust.
Hamish kept on talking of his dislike for Alice until a woman buying apples in a fruit post nearby caught his eye. James took the chance to escape.
When he arrived to the piers, the ship was already gone, and so were the people who had been there to see Alice and her crew off.
The only person that remained was Helen, Alice's mother.
James thought of greeting her, but he doubted she would remember him.
Besides, she needed time alone to come to terms with the idea that her child's fate was now in the hands of the ocean.
Thinking it was better to leave the grieving mother in peace, James ran to the end of the pier.
Into the distance, he could see the small silhouette of the Wonder as it made its way to the exotic Eastern lands.
Disappointment left a bitter taste in his mouth.
The ship and the crew were gone, and he was left behind.
It seemed that was never going to change.
"You are late, Mister Harcourt." Spoke Lord Ascot without taking the spyglass away from his eye.
In his moping, James had failed to recognize him. He talked to James without a trace of resentment, as if he had lost all memory of James' attempt to bribe him a few days ago.
James respectfully stood next to Lord Ascot as they both watched how the Wonder disappeared amidst the ocean's mist.
"Look at it." Eagerly, Lord Ascot handed the spyglass to James. "Before it's gone."
James was so nervous that the spyglass almost slipped from his hands.
All he could see before the mist engulfed the Wonder in its totality was one last glance of Alice's golden hair.
"I get the feeling I won't be seeing that ship again." Laughed Lord Ascot with melancholy.
James felt a knot in his stomach.
The grim sound of those words caught him off guard.
Did Lord Ascot expect it to get attacked by pirates, or to be destroyed in a storm?
James had thought Lord Ascot would have more faith in Alice than that.
Or had all that expedition been the delusion of an old man?
Hamish maybe wasn't so wrong about his father after all.
Lord Ascot saw James' bewilderment, and he put a hand on his shoulder.
"Walk with me, lad." He offered, and James followed without a word.
As they walked across the piers, they were witness of many other departing ships. Sailors hugged their wives and children, while the merchants wished them good luck and prayed for their cargo to reach its destination safely.
A touching scene, most people would say, but to James it was a waste of time.
Goodbyes were unnecessary, and they delayed the trading process.
That's what he believed in, but now that he had missed the Wonder's departure, he realized that the coldness of his vision was as childish as cruel.
"One would say you have never seen someone saying farewell to his loved ones, lad." Observed Lord Ascot as he and James left behind a trading ship that wouldn't be back for two years or more.
"Those kind sentiments don't concern me. I'm a lawyer, not some poet looking for inspiration for a verse." Replied James, with a politeness that couldn't be called friendly.
It hadn't been his intention to sound so uncaring, but it was difficult for him to talk in any different manner when he hadn't done so in years.
Lord Ascot frowned.
"But have you not people you care about?" He asked with concern. "What about your family?"
"All dead, sir." There was nothing more James could say about the matter.
It was Lord Ascot's time to be ashamed, and he let subject die.
"Forgive me. That was out of place." He apologized after some minutes of silence had cleared the tension between them.
"There's nothing to forgive, sir. You didn't know." James said. Time had taught him not to let anything related to those matters affect him anymore. "Actually, it is I who should apologize for my behavior days ago."
"Yes, I haven't forgotten." Stated Lord Ascot firmly, but not without consideration
For James, that was a better treatment than he deserved.
"You said you had thought of many strategies to improve the company's economic situations, didn't you?" asked Lord Ascot.
"Yes." Accepted James.
"I want to hear those that don't involve a procedure similar to your bribing attempt. Also, spare me of those that treat our associates like nothing more than numbers or expendable dead weights."
James couldn't name or think of one.
Was he so unable to come up with something that didn't rely on taking advantage of the misfortunes and ignorance of others?
He was indeed pathetic, and while he had been able to let it slide with indifference in the past, now it disturbed him.
Lord Ascot sighed at the sight of him.
"The foulness of your reputation is finally taking its toll on you. One must only take a look at you to see how miserable you feel. At the very least, the fact that it bothers you proves me you are not out of reach."
"With all your respect, Lord Ascot." James' practical mind urged him to speak, regardless of how embarrassed he was. "Why did you hire me in the first place if I'm as infamous as you say? No matter how I see it, it makes no sense to me at all.
"Why, indeed." Lord Ascot stopped walking.
James imitated him.
They were standing close to the market.
"Because I believe my generation judges and condemns the young too quickly, but seldom do we seek to help you find a better way, or give you a chance." Lord Ascot put his hands behind his back and stared at the crowd. "Look at your old employers, those men who so much criticized your methods once you stopped working for them, but were delighted to apply them when it brought them some benefit. They encouraged your behavior, didn't they?"
"I'm not a child, Lord Ascot. I knew what I was doing all along." Accepted James. "I chose to be like this."
"You are responsible for the way you behave, lad." Lord Ascot agreed without enthusiasm. "But my generation is also responsible for the world we tailored for you. A world where such behavior is generously rewarded."
James remembered his first days as a lawyer, and how poor his advancement had been until he decided to play outside the rules.
Once he started, he never stopped.
Not because he couldn't, just because he didn't want to.
"I know there are lawyers who don't depend on petty tricks and betrayals to be successful and live well. "Said James after a long pause. "I'm just too much of a coward to try to be one them. It's impossible for me to be more than I am now."
"The only way to accomplish the impossible is to believe it's possible." Said Lord Ascot. "That's what Charles always used to say. Strange that I shall comprehend his words only after his death, when my own time has run short."
"What exactly does it mean?" Asked James, with the defensive reservations that always surged inside him every time he confronted a new concept, as if he was close to an animal that could maul him at any moment.
"It depends."
"On what?"
"On what you considered impossible, and how willing you are to try to change it." Lord Ascot said as he caught a glimpse of his son, who was talking with a woman not far away from them. Hamish noticed his father, but he ignored him shamelessly, as if he was a mere stranger on the street.
James was deep in thought.
Those flowery words could only come from a man whose head had always been in the clouds.
Charles Kingsleigh.
An interesting man he must have been, though James doubted he would have liked him if he had met him.
Yet, the way he saw life wasn't half bad.
James even dared to say it was admirable.
"So what it's going to be, Mister Harcourt?" Lord Ascot offered his hand. "Are you willing to try the impossible?"
James knew that if he accepted, he would be severing a considerable part of his life, the whole routine he had grown accustomed to after living with it for years.
He would have to start anew.
The thought of it was nothing short of frightening. He wished he had more time to think about it, but time was exactly what he lacked.
He had to choose at once.
Slowly and trembling, he accepted the handshake.
"I will try." He said with hesitation.
"Nicely said, lad." Lord Ascot gave him a reassuring smile.
James reciprocated it.
In that moment, his old ways began to fade away, but unlike the Wonder's and Alice's departure, James wasn't sad to see them go.
"Scared?"
"Change is always difficult." Asserted James.
"Difficult, yes." Muttered Lord Ascot. "But not impossible."
An engine worker offered them dinner.
James and Alice accepted it.
Its taste was nothing extraordinary, and the portion was too small, but they couldn't complain. They knew it was unlikely they would have anything else to eat until the train was repaired and they arrived to Pekin.
Inside the wagon, everything was dark. Alice could see James only thanks to the dim light of the stars.
Most of the other passengers had fallen asleep. They had succumbed either to the overbearing heat or boredom hours ago.
"That's how you started to work for Lord Ascot. This time, with no bribing attempts on your part, I hope." Alice said as she fed Dinah some rice. The cat nibble the food as if it hadn't eaten for days.
James snorted in amusement.
"I would be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind." He confessed. He cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand. "It cost me greatly to give up all those habits, and it took even more to try to become the lawyer Lord Ascot thought I could be. I spent the months after your departure resisting the temptation of giving up, of going back to the way I used to be."
"But you didn't. That's all you should think about, not of the moments you wavered."
"I only persevered because of Lord Ascot's support…and your mother's too."
"My mother?"
"Yes, she was always kind to me. She used to visit Lord Ascot a lot, mainly to check if you had sent any letters. The two would appease their fears about your well-being with some tea, and they reminisced many stories about you and your father." James recalled with fondness. "It was your mother who first invited me to join them, and soon I found myself listening to their anecdotes with a curiosity I though I had long lost. They told me about your father's plans, about how you believed in him when no one else would, about how expressive you were of your opinions about society, especially about the use of corsets…"
"I am flattered I was the spotlight of your tea time. "Said Alice, blushing a little at the thought of her mother speaking so freely of those matters together with Lord Ascot.
"Sometimes, I must have had a very embarrassed expression on my face, because your mother would then tell me they could change the subject if I wished to."
"And did you?"
"No. There was something about those stories that encouraged me. I can't explain it very well, but…" James cleared his throat. "You, your father, Lord Ascot and your mother… You all helped me when I doubted myself, and I'm grateful for that."
"James." Alice said, with a renewed and beating appreciation for him. "You helped us all too, don't forget that. "
Their hands touched by accident. For a second, Alice thought he would hold hers.
But James recoiled from the touch as if the contact had burned him.
"No. I never did." James stared out the window, and he could see Alice's face reflected on the glass. He had not the courage to look at her in any other way. "I hadn't changed at all. I realized it two years after, the day Lord Ascot died and Hamish took over. Only then did I know how the more I thought things had changed, the more I realized they were the same."
He had begged him to reconsider, but as vile and immature as he was, Hamish would always be Lord Ascot's son.
That attachment not even the most sensible of reasonings could match.
Hamish would be the company's heir, and that was his father's final word.
In his final days before he succumbed to the weight of time and years, Lord Ascot made James promise him he would have faith in Hamish, and that he would help him be a good leader for the company, one with a broad vision and an ethical code.
He also made him promise he would try to help Hamish become a better man, just like Lord Ascot had done with James.
But that was a promise that he couldn't keep, not when it meant James would have to witness how Hamish destroyed everything Lord Ascot had worked for.
It pained him when Hamish disregarded his advice over and over again, and instead urged him to come up with more useful strategie, to revert back to the man James had been.
"You are of no use to me if you will only use your heart instead of your head, Jim. My father is gone and I do not share his beliefs, so you can stop playing the holier-than-thou role. I need a lawyer, not a conscience whispering in my ear."
He repeated the same thing every time James attempted to guide him and stop him from venturing into the same crooked way James had once dwelled.
After months of fruitless attempts, James' patience started to deplete. He thought Hamish would mellow down after getting married, but his wife Alexandra was no nobler than him , and both seemed to encourage each other's shallowness.
James dared to say that marriage had only accentuated Hamish' immaturity. Now that Alexandra was expecting his child, Hamish was ready to fully become the new Lord Ascot.
His place in society and the continuity of the Ascot bloodline were secured. It boosted his ego to higher levels than James thought possible.
It scared him to think how Hamish would behave once the child was born. He would demand no less respect and flattery than the Queen herself.
All this James endured with stoicism.
However, the last straw was a distasteful jest Hamish made of Alice and Lord Ascot, and how both had been infected by Charles Kingsleigh's stupid madness.
"People like that man belong in the Asylum. In there, he would have been called a king and he could have died with some dignity. Instead, he was company's buffoon to the very end, the butt of every joke. Kingsleigh may not have been so good with business, but he was good for a laugh; don't you agree Jim?"
James would never forget the look on Hamish's face when he stood up to him, in a cloudy day in Lord Ascot's study.
"Your father always wanted the best for you, and hoped you would grow out of your idiotic and cruel ways, but now I see there are things not even time can change." James snapped. "And never call me Jim again, or I shall forget all we are civilized men."
Hamish erased his sardonic smile from his lips. It was the first and last time James would see him behave with so much seriousness.
"If he had wanted the best for me, he never would have burdened me with a company I never asked for." Hamish grinned again, satisfied with having left James speechless "But that doesn't matter now. I own it, and I will lead it as I see fit. You can either agree with me or get crushed under my heel, Harcourt, but I will not tolerate your boring self-righteousness."
"You will fall soon." James put his hat back on. He had no place there anymore, not with someone like Hamish as his boss. "And you will have no one else to blame but yourself. Farewell."
It was the first time James abandoned his employer without showing him the expected respect the gentlemanly etiquette demanded, but Hamish didn't deserve it.
He had many fortunate things he didn't deserve or appreciated.
James cocked his head and hastened his pace.
The sooner he left the house, the sooner he wouldn't have to keep worrying about the Ascots.
He couldn't keep his promise to Lord Ascot of helping Hamish, but he wouldn't forget all he had learned.
James would continue to be an honest man. That was something Hamish couldn't take away from him.
"Mister Harcourt." A steeled voice emerged from the living room. The entrance was only a few steps away, but James' feet transformed into stone when Lady Ascot appeared with her daughter in law standing behind her, looming in her shadow.
The two women were dressed as elegantly as ever, and neither hid their sense of superiority when James approached them and bowed before them.
"Good evening, ladies."
"Where are you going? My son informed me you had mouch to discuss and you couldn't have finished after just a few minutes." Asserted Lady Ascot with a twitch of her nose.
Alexandra inspected James from head to toe before giving him a forced smile, as she always did.
"Forgive me, Lady Ascot. Your son and I will never have anything else to discuss." James' knew Lady Ascot understood the meaning of his words, judging by the incredulous look on her face.
"Alexandra, leave us. You must rest. "Said Lady Ascot. Her daughter in law caressed her womb and obeyed with diligence. She left towards her room with a servant holding her hand and helping her walk.
Once they were alone, Lady Ascot sat down in a velvet coach in front of a tea table filled with various pastries.
"Sit, Mister Harcourt." She ordered as she poured tea in her cup.
"My Lady, I really must be going." Tried to explain James, with his heart racing inside his chest.
Lady Ascot almost crashed the cup after she slammed it against the table. Her eyes were raging, her neck as stiff and tense as the roots of a tree.
"Sit." She repeated without separating her teeth.
She didn't need to raise her voice, and in the blink of an eye, James was sitting in front of her.
She served James tea without asking him if he wanted some.
"Why did you become a lawyer, Mister Harcourt?" She asked after taking a sip from her cup. She added a spoonful of sugar and stirred it as she waited for an answer.
James wasn't expecting those sort of questions. They concerned no one but himself, and were useless to his employers.
In his shock, he could only answer with silence. A silence Lady Ascot used to weave a stronger web around him.
"Do not think I care about your wants in life. I am simply curious about why you would throw away your career when you are so young, especially after considering at the cost it came." Lady Ascot's words dripped venom, and they reopened wounds James' thought were scars. "It is not without great sacrifices that poor parents buy a future for their son."
James felt tears accumulating inside his eyes. Only he was supposed to know that, and yet, in front of him there was a ruthless woman speaking of his life as it was the most trivial of matters.
"And as far as I understand it, the toll your parents paid was steep. So much that they couldn't see the fruits of their work in this life." Lady Ascot giggled. "What a shame. I'm sure they would be proud to see the man you've become. From a boy of the slums to a lawyer in a great company… they couldn't have asked for more."
James swallowed a tear that streamed down his cheek. It amazed how vulnerable he became when someone dug their claws in his weak spots.
"I don't think it would be right to disregard their sacrifices so uncaringly. They didn't work themselves to death only to see you begging in the streets again, because that's exactly how you will end up if you dare to quit." Lady Ascot wiped her lips with a handkerchief. "If you leave now, I will make sure no one thinks of offering you a job again, mark my words. Life as a poor man in London is unbearable, or so I've heard. Do you want to return to it, Mister Harcourt?"
"Why are you doing this?" James felt a hollowness in his stomach. He was helpless, completely at the mercy of Lady Ascot.
"Doing what? I'm simply asking you to do your job." Lady Ascot leaned closer to him. James backed down, shrinking in his chair. "My husband and Charles Kingsleigh were good men, but they died poisoned with their dreams of achieving the impossible. You are too young to follow them in their folly, Mister Harcourt. I humored my husband in his last days, but now he is gone and we have to move on to more practical methods. Don't let his delusions hinder your true potential …or your future."
"No."
"Very well. You are free to do as you wish, Mister Harcourt. But I hope you are ready to face the consequences." Lady Ascot finished her tea. "Filial ingratitude is the worst of faults. You are a viler man than I thought. Leave this house at once."
James didn't move.
His body didn't answer to his thoughts.
"What's the matter? I thought you were eager to leave." Said Lady Ascot with superiority. "Or could it be that you wish to stay?"
James wished Lord Ascot was by his side.
He wished it was Helen Kingsleigh he was talking to and not Lady Ascot.
He wished Alice was there. She wouldn't have yielded to those lowly threats, and maybe in seeing how she remained strong, James would have found the same courage inside him too.
But he was alone, and no one would come to his aid.
If he wanted to find strength, he would have to do it by himself.
He searched.
"What's it going to be, Mister Harcourt?"
James found nothing else than the memories of his working father and suffering mother.
"I'll stay." He whispered, feeling relieved that Lord Ascot was no longer alive to see the magnitude of his failure.
Lady Ascot smiled motherly. It was as if she was a different woman, but under the sweet façade, James knew her fangs were still unsheathed.
"I am glad to see you have not lost your mind." She stood up and forced James to do so as well. She was stronger than she looked. "It' s an honor to have you with us, Mister Harcourt. Now go, my son and you have much to discuss and he needs your counsel. You two will raise our company higher than my husband ever thought possible, I'm sure of it."
With that, Lady Ascot dismissed him.
A servant came and took James back to Lord Ascot's office, like a guard guiding a prisoner to his cell.
Hamish was shocked when he saw James enter the study again, but he immediately understood that it was the work of his mother.
His friendliness towards him James had died down a great amount, but he kept his disposition open to the advice of the lawyer, whom he felt was cured from his father and Kingsleigh's madness.
"Welcome back, Mister Harcourt." Hamish greeted with good humor, ignoring James' despair. "Now then, shall we go back to work? I'd very much like to hear all you have planned about how to deal with our dead weight associates. Go on, I'm all ears."
James was numb. No matter what he chose, all the roads led him to the same place.
He had nowhere else to go.
He was back to the beginning, back to the man he had been.
He took breath and spoke.
The words came to him naturally.
And just like that, everything went back same as it was before.
It had been impossible after all.
"What you say is interesting, Mister Harcourt. I'd like to hear more later." Said Hamish as he sat in his father's chair. "However, there is something I'd like you to take care of first. It must be done at once, before my child is born and the Wonder returns. I won't be able to celebrate my new status as Lord Ascot until it's done. It's about a certain associate of mine, a rather peculiar one."
James stared at Hamish. He wished he could hate him, but he barely had the energy to stand on his feet, even less to waste it on someone who didn't deserve it.
"Who?" Asked James, disconcerted by the look on Hamish's eye.
"Who else could it be…." Said Hamish as if it was obvious. "Other than the loon´s widow?"
Helen Kingsleigh.
What could Hamish have against her?
Was he really so narrow-minded that he couldn't separate his resentment for Alice from her mother? That resentment alone was senseless.
It had been a low blow to the Ascot's reputation for months, but it fell into oblivion after Hamish's marriage.
Why couldn't he just forget about it already?
"It all will be done legally, of course, to avoid you breaking your so much cherished code of honor. We take care of our employers in my company." Hamish said with dignity.
"What exactly do you want me to do?" Urged James.
"Make her fall." It was a simple order, and Hamish enjoyed pronouncing each word of it. "How you do it is up to you, just make sure to get it done before Alice comes back. "
James remembered the kindness Helen Kingsleigh had showed him.
And now he was supposed to forget all about it?
"And how do you expect me to do it legally?" He inquired, trying to measure Hamish's knowledge of those procedures.
"You are the lawyer here, it's your job to think about it." Shrugged Hamish. "You know how to play with people's fears and make possibilities sound like facts. An aged and scared lonely widow with growing debts and daughter at sea will believe everything you tell her. I don't see anything challenging about it."
"Then do it yourself, if it's so easy."
"I'd love to, but I would be stealing your job." Hamish said with condescendence. "If I do it, then why would I need to pay you at all? You might as well get fired this instant, Mister Harcourt."
Mother and son were the same.
James knew he had no way to escape the cruelty of those snakes.
He had no choice.
"What's it going to be, Mister Harcourt?"
Or had he?
"It will get done."
And he did.
Alice wished James would speak no more, but she couldn't stop him.
She suddenly felt the need to get away from him. She no longer wanted to be by his side.
"It was me, Alice." James confessed. "I was the one who made sure your mother's house and shares fell into Hamish's hands. I told her it was for the better, that there was no other way, and she believed my lies every time. She trusted me, and I took advantage of her trust."
A dormant anger boiled inside Alice's heart.
Betrayal, when it came from a friend, hurt more than all the humiliation her enemies had put her through.
"That's why you could have contradicted Hamish's legal procedure." Alice Spat. She put Dinah on the seat and stood up. "Because you were the one who came up with it. My family's home, the Wonder, my mother's tranquility … you took it all away."
"Alice..." James stood up too. "Yes, it was all my doing. Hamish would never have been able to get away with it if it hadn't been for me."
"How easy you speak of it." Hissed Alice with her fists clenched. "And then what? You felt bad and decided to work with us because you were seeking your redemption? You wanted to be the knight in shining armor of those poor Kingsleigh women you tricked. How noble of you, Harcourt! We would be lost without you."
"It wasn't like that. "James explained, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "I delayed the process as much as I could, hoping you would return and set things right. I did all I could to help you and your mother, Alice, I tried…"
"No, you didn't." Alice's voice woke up some of the passengers, who stared at the scene with alarm and curiosity. "And don't you dare to blame it all on me. You didn't fail because I didn't come back on time, you failed because you were a weak man."
"Alice." James reached his hand towards her.
Alice slapped it away.
"You still are."
"Alice!"
She ran away from him, away from the gossiping and judging eyes of the other passengers.
She opened a door and entered another wagon. James came after her, calling her name, not caring if they woke up the whole train in the process.
Alice wished she hadn't told her.
She wished she didn't know, because now that she did, James had become a different person in her eyes.
All the time they had spent together now seemed like a mockery. James had known the suffering he had caused to Alice and her mother, and yet he'd had the gall to keep it quiet and act as if he had cared for them.
He had pretended to be her friend, but now Alice didn't know if they had ever been close at all.
Had James told her sooner, would her anger against him had been any less fervent?
Alice quickly wondered about it, but an answer wouldn't help her piece together what had been broken.
Her resentment faded, and Alice realized that it wasn't what caused her ill feelings towards James.
She wouldn't trust him again, she couldn't.
That's what pained her.
The truth had torn apart in a few hours what secrecy had kept together for almost a year.
That's what James had brought upon them with his honesty.
Maybe, thought Alice as she reached the last wagon of the train, James should have always remained a crooked lawyer.
If he had, they never would have met.
It would have been better for them that way.