SCENE TWENTY FIVE
Isle d' Tresor Antoinette and Miguel's home outside Richmond –
More than a fortnight later, with the last big rainstorm of the winter hitting Richmond, Artemus Gordon walked into the library at Isle d' Tresor, weary, sodden and glum. He'd spent most of his time just lately training back and forth between Richmond and Washington, with a side trip to check leads around Atlanta. He'd been in meetings with Frank Harper, James Richmond, Jeremy Pike and the President, for most of the second half of his trip. And he had no good news at all to share with Jim, Mac, Jacques or the de Cervantes about the team's ongoing investigation of Gideon Boudin. The Haiti born Georgian had gone to ground somewhere well out of their reach for now, they were all certain. And they all expected him to take at least one more shot at regaining control of 'his Courier' otherwise known as James T. West.
Just as he'd expected, Artie found Antoinette singing and laughing with Miguel while she rubbed her husband's forehead. Mac Macquillan was carving yet another plaything for one of the Ls, that looked to be a small rocking horse. And while he did so, he and Jemmy Singer were avidly listening to an excited batch of those brothers, talking about what they'd done today. And they were probably telling that tale for the fourth or fifth time, Artie guessed. Jacques D'eglisier was poking the fire, but turned and laughed merrily at Gordon's soaked condition, despite the coughing jag his laughter brought on. Jacques' asthma had been plaguing him badly this winter, or Artie knew he'd have gone along on this last jaunt to Washington and Atlanta.
"What, what have you been doing, mon ami?" the Canadien asked. "Were you standing under a waterfall?"
"No, I was coming back from yet another day of meetings that led absolutely nowhere, and guess what, it began to storm Where's Jim?" Artemus asked, realizing he hadn't seen or heard his partner as he walked in. Before Jacques could answer, a very Westian shout of anger from the small study next door did the trick.
"NO! No, Jimmy, you're not even listening to me! I WON'T DO THIS! I WON'T LET YOU DO THIS! I said no and I meant it! There's no way in holy hell I will let you do this or anything of the kind! And on top of all that, you shouldn't even be up here. You never should have made a trip like this, right now, Uncle. And I don't understand how Aunt Jo, or Bea or Jeanny LET you do it!" Jim was shouting, loud enough for half the street outside to hear him now.
"Torry, son… you're just not thinkin' clearly right now. And I can surely understand that." Jimmy Randolph's soft, Tidewater-slurred voice replied as Jim charged into the library, keeping to a well marked, well learned path between tables full of Ani's china and etageres full of oddments from Miguel's travels.
"Understand it?" Jim echoed, turning back in the direction of his uncle's voice, as that gentleman strode into the library a few slow paces behind him, with two women around his age accompanying him. "Understand it? Uncle, I don't even want to understand this! And on top of that there's the little question of why I didn't already know about … about what you're… going through right now!
Jimmy, I'm not a little boy, well, not in the way you seem to think! I'm a grown man with a clearer understanding of what I owe you right now than I had the whole, entire time I was growing up! And I don't go back on my word, and I don't welch on my debts! You taught me not to do both those things, Uncle, that was you! And more than anything else, I don't go back to someone I owe and ask them to do more, to give more, to give up even more than they already did for me! Now that's my last word on this! My very last! I will not ever change my mind. And you know that, too, or if you don't, you purely should!"
"Because Randolphs are too hot headed, too hard headed and too many to fight." Jimmy nodded and recited something Artie had heard Jim explain a few thousand times before.
"Too many to fight when we're on the same side of an issue, anyway." Jim added, glumly. "Guess I never thought we'd be on opposite sides, ever again, not after the War."
"We weren't then, and we're not now, Torry. You only think we are." Jimmy suggested, smiling at the younger man a bit sadly because he knew his nephew couldn't see him smile. "I broached the whole subject way too abruptly for you, nephew, and for that I'm profoundly sorry. I should have let us go through all the usual amenities first, as your Grandma Jean taught us both to do."
"Grandma Jean would have absolutely no truck with what you want to do, Jimmy. You surely know that's true." Jim insisted, still frowning fiercely in his uncle's direction. 'she'd call it what I call it, a pointless desecration, a worthlessly cruel mutilation, maybe even an absolute abomination if she were standing here right now. And G-d, I wish she was!"
"Well, so do we all, Torry, dearling." a small framed older woman, standing on Jimmy's right, with shining dark gold-grey hair and wide grey eyes said, stepping up beside Jimmy. "Your grandmother was a wonderful woman, and a light to all who ever knew her in the least."
"But what, Queen Bea?" Jim demanded to know, turning towards her voice. "I heard a very distinct but at the end of that last sentence there."
"But Missus Jean knew nothing about the kind of procedure we're talking about attempting for you, Dearling." Beatrice Parry answered, just as Artie realized from seeing some dauggerotypes Jim had, that she was Gideon Boudin's sister! 'so we don't know for certain what she'd say. We can't. We can agree she loved you more than her own life, can't we? We can agree she'd want you to have the life you worked so hard, you fought so hard to achieve, can't we, Torry?"
"Queen Bea, you know I was raised never to argue with a woman." Jim frowned. "You know both my Grandmothers, bless "em would tan my hide, right here and now if they heard me doing any such thing. So, can you please let me settle this with Jimmy? I don't ever want to fight with you."
"So, I can take it that you don't want to fight with me, either, is that right, Torry?" The woman on Jimmy's left, a petite, brightly smiling silvered blonde asked Jim.
"No, Aunt Jo, of course I don't. Truth be told, I don't want to fight with anyone right now, with the possible exception of someone I can't get my hands on!" Jim insisted, turning now towards his Aunt Joanna Randolph, Jimmy's second wife.
"And that would be my brother, Remy." Beatrice Parry nodded, crossing to hug Jim. "I'd be glad to help you throttle the man, myself, dearling. But you know that. He's caused such terrible harm already. And G-d knows, knowing my brother, he's not done yet."
"Excuse me for interrupting, Mrs. Parry, isn't it? I'm Artemus Gordon, Jim's partner." Artie couldn't help asking the darker haired woman. 'do you mind if I ask you one small question?"
"You want to ask if I know where you can find my brother, don't you, Mr. Gordon?" Beatrice asked. "And sadly, I can't say for sure. He's purchased estates all throughout the West Indies in just the last few years, at least one in Rio de Janiero, one on Capri, another near Mykonos, and I believe one in the Azores."
"Where we would have a great deal of trouble extraditing him. Yes, I can see where he would try that tact." Artie replied, grimacing at another lost chance.
"I'm sorry to be so little help to that element of your investigation, sir. I want Remy stopped as much as anyone here, I assure you. He's dangerously, violently insane." Bea Parry answered. "But it may be I can help you in some other way. You don't know that much about Remy at this point, I believe, from what Torry's said. And I've of course known him all his life."
"We'll be glad to know whatever you can share with us, Mrs. Parry." Macquillan said, getting up to join the group in the middle of the library. "But that wasn't your purpose in coming here. And we have no reason to interrogate you, none at all."
"Thomas!" Artie whispered, turning to glare at the Bostonian.'she's that bastard's sister! I don't even know how you even let her in this house, old friend! But now you're not even gonna let me ask her about …"
'this isn't my house to let anyone in to or out of, for one thing, old friend." Mac answered, glaring back. "And for another, the Youngster was really glad she came up with his aunt and uncle. He's been pretty well in the dumps, just lately. Maybe you didn't catch on to that."
"I'm RIGHT HERE IN THE ROOM, FELLOWS! AND I'm BLIND AS YOU MAY NOT KNOW, BUT I'm NOT DEAF!" Jim shouted, just as angrily as his friends. "Also, I've known Bea Parry longer than I've known anyone else in this room, except for my uncle! So if you want to not trust me now, on whether Bea can be trusted, Artemus, you'd best come over here and say that to my face!"
"James," Artie started to say, approaching the younger man.
"Don't handle me, Artie. Don't work me, damn it!" Jim insisted. "I'm not mentally impaired! I'm not crippled, and I'm not an invalid! Also, I've about had it with being kept at arm's length from these trips, these meetings and these decisions that are apparently being made all around me without a word to me! You don't get to decide things about my life, not now, not anymore! None of you get to do that, is that clear? Do we, can we, finally have that cl…" Jim shouted and then shuddered as if one of his long time bouts of malaria was coming back.
"Torry, Torry, dearling, it's alright. It's alright, dearling boy." Beatrice Parry immediately told the younger man, reaching for his right arm. "You're not my brother, you couldn't ever, ever possibly be. And if you happen to recall the way Remy habitually exprDubbyuhs himself sometimes, that's hardly a surprise, now is it, love?"
Jim surprised everyone by drawing Bea into a hug. " 'm sorry, Queen Bea. It just … it catches me up pretty short when that happens… And … there is one member of D Company… who can carry off a pretty darn fine impersonation of … Remy, so we call him that." the former soldier sighed, stepping back a bit.
"Well, I seem to have come in on the middle of something." Artie shrugged. "Would someone like to fill me in?"
"I've been corresponding with Doctor de Cervantes, with both of them, in fact for more than two months, now, Mr. Gordon." Jimmy Randolph answered tiredly, leaning on his wife's right arm. "And I came up from N'folk today to tell Torry the conclusion I've come to at this point."
"You what?" Jim demanded furiously, turning in the direction he last heard Miguel's voice from.
" Miguel, you've been writing to my uncle about this, all without one word to me? Miguel, I told you, while we were still up in Baltimore that I had no intention of making use of grave robbing, which is what you're both really talking about here, for the sake of an untried procedure that may or may not help me see again!
And back then I was talking about the gruesome idea of going to a morgue, I suppose and picking some stranger's body to take corneas from! What in the very devil makes you think I'd even consider making such macabre use of my own uncle's eyes? Well, to be absolutely clear, I never will do anything of the kind! And you both should… no, you all should know me better than that by this time!"
"No, Torry, it was I who first made this suggestion, not Dr de Cervantes." Jimmy protested tiredly, walking over to his sister's son. "And it is no more than your Daddy or your angel-momma would do in my place for Sarah Jean, Paul or Robby. You know that as well as I. When I learned how you were injured, as you know I was still in Europe with these ladies, little April and Sarah Jean.
So I took the opportunity to consult with some doctors on the continent. And they were all very much enthused about the good doctor's articles and extracts as regards this surgery, with the caveat that the best chance a candidate for this procedure would have must be a donor as they called it, from within his closest kin. That being the case, nephew unless you have some secret progeny I don't know of, your best chance to regain your vision certainly lies with me."
"Uncle." Jim said, frowning tautly, and shaking his head. "You know I … understand what you're saying. You know how much I owe you already, for everything you've done for me. I may not be acting as if I'm aware of that, but I surely am. I just… I can't … Uncle, I really can't do what you … what you want me to. If it worked, of which there is no guarantee at all, how could I look your children, and grandchildren, my cousins in the eye, ever again? How could I go down to N'folk and play with little Joanna and Rachel, or their brothers? How could I sit and talk with Aunt Jo, when all the time she'd have to be thinking... they'd all have to be thinking… Torry's looking at us with Jimmy's eyes!"
"Torry, don't you think this could be another way, a fine, giving way for your uncle to live on with all of us?" Joanna asked, very quietly, stepping between the Jim and his namesake.
"Aunt Jo, I …" I can't do this. I purely can't." Jim said, and then turned towards the last place he'd heard his uncle's voice. "Jimmy, you asked me to hear you out, and as far as I can tell, I did that. But now you won't hear my honest answer, because it's not the one you wanted. That's not the fair state of mind you taught me to keep to, Uncle, and you know that as well as me. So, please, just hear me out now."
"Very well, Torry." Jimmy Randolph agreed. "Go on ahead and tell me why you're refusing what little help I can still give you now."
"Because, all due respect, Jimmy, you're wrong about the reason you gave me for doing this." Jim insisted, folding his arms across his chest. "You have NO unpaid debt to me, you never did. Of the two of us, I'm the one who's the debtor. What you've done for me, my whole, entire life, Uncle, I can no more repay you for than I could jump the moon. You helped Dad and Granma Jean raise me after… after momma died. You helped me get into every school I ever wanted to go to, including, ultimately, West Point.
All that being the case, you have no unpaid debt to me, Uncle, no matter what you may believe. And on top of that, I don't think momma or Grandma Jean would ever forgive me for taking your offer. Also, I'm not sure Dad would say it's right. And I'm not sure Aunt or Bea would stand here agreeing with you right now, if you weren't so danged good at pitching to a jury… So, let's … let's just let that go, alright? I'm… I'm gonna go … soak my head it's kinda achey… I … I'm glad you're all here. I just … don't feel so … hospitable right now… I … shouldn't have hollered at you all. 'm sorry. Truly."
"No, Torry, wait, please. I'm sorry." Jimmy Randolph said, and put one hand on Jim's right arm. "I should have come up here to see you a great deal sooner. It's not as if I only found out this winter that I'm not in the best of health. After all, I'm not a spring chicken, any longer. I'm sixty seven, as you well know, nephew. So I'm awfully close now to the 'threescore and ten' The Book gives us. I was born three years ahead of your dear Daddy, Stephen. Now, please, sit down, won't you, Torry?"
"I …I can't say no to you as far as sitting and talking, Jimmy." Jim nodded, and walked with his uncle over to a settee by the library window.
"I was hoping for nothing more than that, Torry, nothing more, really then the chance to sit and talk with Jessy-Anne's son, again." Jimmy smiled as they sat down, together and began to talk more quietly. Artemus noted how rigid Jim's posture still was and glanced at the team, seeing that they all recalled the terrible plan Boudin had in mind for this nephew and uncle.
"Mrs. Randolph," Artemus said to Joanna Randolph, as he watched Jim a moment longer. " I hope you won't take this question the wrong way. I'm very, very sorry to hear that Mr. Randolph is so very ill, now. But I'm not sure I understand what your husband hopes for by offering Jim this … this chance."
"That's very simple to answer, Mr. Gordon. And I don't take it wrong at all. What we both, along with our dear friend Bea hope for is that Torry will see again." Joanna answered, making a point to draw Beatrice close to her.
"And for some small measure of redemption." Bea Parry added. "Perhaps y'all would like me to explain that a little bit further, Mr. Gordon. And as a kind of rehearsal for having the same discussion with Torry, I'd be more than glad to do that."
"Bea, this isn't necessary by any means whatsoever."Joanna protested.
"But I do need to practice what I hope will persuade Torry to let Jimmy do this for him. And these are Torry's truest friends. Isn't that what you've told me, Jo dearling?" Beatrice asked her long time friend.
"Yes, I'm afraid you have me, there, old friend." Joanna shook her head and chuckled. "I'm afraid I've been praising all of you to the skies, to anyone who would listen, down to home. I know Torry would have surely died in that horrendous place without your help and your friendship."
"Well, thank you, Mrs. Randolph. The truth is we all know Jim would do the same for us, and in a heartbeat. And just being honestly curious, Mrs. Parry, I for one would like to hear what you intend to tell my partner." Artie admitted with a shrug.
"Will you come and sit over by the fireplace, madames, mes amis?" Antoinette asked, getting up while Miguel hurried to her side. "I'll have Cook send in some tea for us. Please excuse me while I see to that."
"Ma cher, ma vrai coeur, are you quite well?" the small doctor demanded to know. "Antoinette?"
"I'm completely well, mon cher. In fact, I feel almost ecstatic, this afternoon. It was only this morning that I was, comment se dit? Somewhat queasy." Ani told him, eliciting a brilliant grin from her husband. The couple kissed and embraced as if no one else was in the room with them, and their evident joy seemed to lighten every face and voice around them.
"Looks like there's some good news on the way, at least, old friend." Artemus whispered to Mac.
"You're turning into something of a gossip, aren't you, old friend?" Mac jibed back. 'maybe we should wait till Ani actually tells us."
"If you wait for that kind of thing you never catch up, old friend." Artie grinned, and then turned back to wait for Joanna and Beatrice to take their seats on a divan to the left of the huge fireplace.
"First of all, " Beatrice Parry said when everyone had settled and she knew Jimmy had Jim fully engaged in conversation across the library. "you gentlemen clearly already know that my brother, Gideon alexander Remiel Boudin is in large measure responsible for the terrible ordeal Torry and you as his friends have come through in the last few years. I'm told by my dear friend Joanna that Torry was able to confirm that appalling fact for you.
I don't know that Jimmy's nephew is at all aware of the alleged reasons my brother maintains to defend his actions. And let me add that Remy has never admitted any of his awful deeds. But he's never been loath to complain about the supposed wrongs that drive all his ambitions and actions. In that way, and sadly, in many others, my brother very much takes after our mother. She was Helene Terese Beatrice Dupree, of Athens, Georgia, before she married our father, Joshua Phillipe Zadkiel Boudin, of Port au Prince, Haiti. Together they amassed a considerable fortune, building on the estates left by both my grandfathers, and had five children, only two of whom survived to adulthood, myself and Remy.
However, maman was never the most stableminded of people. She was a great beauty in her youth. And she was considered quite brilliant socially and politically in her day, but also … quite given to extremes of emotion. And when papa's estates on Haiti were threatened by the revolution there, by the Republique, maman suffered a nervous collapse, the first of several I know about. I'm not sure she ever recovered fully from, well, from any of them. But it was after the second one, that happened when I was …umm… nine and a half, so Remy was just turned seven, that I saw, that I noted definite changes in moman. From that time forward, the main theme in all her conversations and all her instructions to us, was betrayal.
Betrayal, maman always said, whether on a national, a social, a political or a personal level was beyond the Pale, never to be forgiven. Betrayal, by which she meant any failure in loyalty, faith, support, respect or affection, was the true Original Sin, maman declared, time and again. So, she accused our relatives in Haiti of betrayal whenever they failed to adequately account for family resources there. She accused father of betrayal, whenever he opposed her will, her plans or her actions. She accused me of betrayal when I went to live with father, after she drove him out, and when I married, twice to men she'd never approve of, Michael McTiernan and Rhys Elian Parry. And in the only occasion I know of, she accused Remy of betrayal, when at thirteen, he elected to spend a year's term at William and Mary, hundreds of miles away from maman.
So, in practice, betrayal meant to maman failure to love her as much as she demanded to be loved, which was entirely, witholding nothing from her, ever. Love, as her madness warped and corrupted it, was to be given all to one, and only one, none other, ever. And of course, in maman's perspective, the one to be loved that all consuming way was not the Deity, as we are taught, but herself. Well, Remy took all that poison, all that bitter fear and raging jealousy in with our mother's milk. He believed everything she ever said, as far as I can tell. He adopted her doctrine as his own, without a moment's questioning.
According to maman's and therefore Remy's world-view, I was not ever to love any man more than I loved my own brother. I was to defer to Remy, two and a half years my junior in all things, always. And I was, while she still lived, to defer to maman's iron will as regards every aspect of my life. I don't doubt for an instant that Remy believes that deference should have transferred to him, when maman passed away. And so in that sense, I've grievously 'wronged' both of them, you see. And in that sense, of not being entirely devoted to Remy, Jimmy stands indicted for the same 'offenses'. And that's what I fear lies at the root of all these troubles." Mrs. Parry said and began to weep.
"Bea, dearest, that's just absurd, it's … well, it is pure madness." Joanna protested, hugging her friend. "For one thing, everyone who's ever known our Jimmy just loves him to pieces. Robby, Pauly and Jeanny have the same, exact gift. So does young Jemison Singer and his brother Ben and so does Torry. They all came by it honestly from their grandmothers who were the closest of sisters, Jean and Margaret Torrance, who came by it from their father, Aidan Torrance. That's why where I come from we call it 'the infamous Torrance charm'. It's … inescapable, really. And there's nothing to be ashamed of in being charmed that way, dearest Queen Bea, just nothing."
"No, dearling. No, I know I've done nothing wrong, nothing at all I'm ashamed of as far as Jimmy is concerned. But from Remy's viewpoint I have 'betrayed him' on at least three separate occasions, when I fell in love with three wonderful men. Those men were in reverse order, Rhys Elian Parry, Michael Andrew McTiernan, and James Torrance Kieran Randolph."
Bea shook her head, smiling tearily. 'so, what I fear, what I should have known enough to greatly fear all this while is that Remy, in his own, embittered, mad, poisoned way once loved Jimmy, too. That would most likely have been all those years ago, when they were both at William and Mary. And it turned out to be a much harder year than Remy expected, staying there. So, maman sent me to bring him home in that spring, of 1832. And so, I met Jimmy.
"And that year, the year we met, Jimmy Randolph was a prodigy, surely, just by virtue of being admitted early to the college. But all I knew at the time, and Joanna, I trust you not to ever repeat this to your dearling husband, all I knew was that Jimmy Randolph was the most handsome, glorious, charming, wonderful seventeen year old boy on the whole, entire planet! And of course, yes, we fell very much in love for a time, back then. And now, I fear Remy's doing everything he can to punish Jimmy and myself, for our separate "betrayals'. And what is worst of all, I fear my brother chose to make Torry pay the forfeit for our 'sins'!"
Now Mac Macquillan had a question or two and he visibly hesitated to ask the pair of friends anything, which Joanna noted.
'thomas, you're our dear friend, too, just as you were Stephen's friend for so many years." Jimmy's wife encourged him, as she sat by Bea, holding her friend's hand. "You can ask anything you want of either Bea, myself or Jimmy, if it will only help Torry."
"Alright." Mac said, scratching his left ear. "Alright, Joanna. I'm just sitting here in shock all over again, because what you're describing as Boudin's so called motive in all this is something that happened and ended around forty years ago. So, I'm wondering, do you honestly believe this man is insane, or is he consciously responsible for his actions? I'm asking that as an attorney, of course, because I have no wish to prosecute someone who's legally and mentally incompetent to stand trial. That being said, there are few people I can think of I'd like to indict, try and convict more than Boudin, if he's capable of being tried."
"My brother has always known precisely what he was doing, Mr. Macquillan.
And he knows the Law, he is an attorney, also. That much I am sure of." Bea answered. "What's mad about Remy is why he does these nightmarish things. He believes he has every right and in fact is the true victim in each and every case. He has no compunction, no empathy whatever when it comes to tormenting those he's decided are his 'enemies'."
"A case in point being a great many of those wretches held in the asylum in Baltimore, until it suddenly burned to the ground." Artemus suggested.
"Yes, tragically, that's exactly correct. I believe it was you, Mr. Gordon who personally made sure of Torry's escape from the same fate as more than a hundred men who died there." Joanna noted, smiling at Artie. "And I'm … we're all more than grateful to you for that, sir."
"Thank you." Artie answered. "And I'm sorry, ladies, and especially you, Mrs. Parry, for being inhospitable before. I'm afraid it's becoming a conditioned reflex of sorts when I meet … when I simply react without thinking things through ahead of time."
"Mr. Gordon, you have nothing to apologize to me for, I assure you." Beatrice told him. " I know my brother all too well. And so I know he targeted not only our Torry throughout this ordeal, but you as well. He learned a great deal from maman, and aside from a natural bent for sadism, one of those lessons was in a truly virulent collection of prejudices. The painfully absurd part of that in this case is, Remy has no way of knowing your nationality or…"
"Or my beliefs?" Artie agreed, shrugging. "No, no he doesn't. As far as I recall we've never met. And if we had, it wouldn't be under any conditions where I would be discussing either my politics or my religion. My Aunt Miriam thought very badly of people who did that and I almost always agreed with Aunt Miri. From what I hear, Mrs. Randolph, the same holds true of James and you."
Joanna laughed at that, shook her head, and grinned brightly. "I'm sure Torry exaggerated somewhat on that score. It was his grandmother, Missus Jean as most of three counties around always called her, who Torry would never think of disagreeing with. That's just one of the hundreds of reasons I truly wish she was here right now, to help us convince the boy. You see, I don't agree at all with Torry on that question. I think Jean Torrance Randolph would tell him to do anything he could to get the life he so wanted for so long, back again."
Across the library, Jimmy Randolph was still tryiug his own arguments with his namesake and nephew. 'torry, I was pretty darned hamhanded in the way I approached you with this idea of mine, I know that. But the clumsy way I put it, nephew, that doesn't change one single iota of the core truth of the matter. I can help you now, I know that, and so do you, Torry. So as far as I'm concerned either you're just bein' too prideful right now to take help where's it's offered you freely, or you truly are angry with your old uncle, because I brought Gideon Boudin into your life and left him there to have a free hand with my sister's son. So, I'd like you to be honest enough to tell me which of those is the case now, nephew."
Jim rubbed at his forehead, which was still aching and shook his head before he answered. Then he set his features sternly and turned back towards Jimmy. "Uncle, do you not know after all this time that Gideon Boudin bitterly wants you dead? Do you not know that if he ever had his way, it would be for you to … to take your own life while he looked on with tremendous glee?"
"I can't say I knew precisely that to be the fact of the matter, Torry, no. But neither am I very surprised that he'd tell you such a thing, hoping you would in fcct, inform me of it. My …former friend Remy thinks I terribly wronged him long ago. And what you may not know is that 'wrong' was falling in love with his sister, our dearest Beatrice, when I was just seventeen.
I've known Remy since… let me think, the fall of Eighteen hundred and thirty one, to be exact. He came to William and Mary for a special program intended for exceptional younger students, and surpassed the rest of his class with tremendous ease. I was taking a year to work on my own pre-Law studies at the time, and first met Remy there. And the next spring, he introduced me to our dear Queen Bea.
Well, Torry, his way of seeing things has always been rather melodramatic. So it's hardly a shock that he'd like me to convenience him by removing myself from this worldly stage we all tread on, as Mr. Shakespeare says. It also fits neatly into the plain fact that Remy will take an 'enemy's life, but only at second or third hand if he can help it. But there's something more, Torry, I can see it in your face. What more does that old dastard want from me, after all this time?"
Jim's backbone stiffened and he raised his chin almost as if he'd been called to attention. This was the very last question he wanted to hear from Jimmy Randolph, much less answer. "Jimmy, I don't … I don't give a flying fig what Boudin wants. Didn't we just get done establishing that he hates you? Why should I even give him another moment's thought? And why should you?"
"Because he's made himself a genuine enemy to you and me, Torry, to all our kin and all your friends, here. So we really do need to know as much as we can, in order to protect the people we love from this dangerous adversary, wouldn't you say that?" Randolph asked.
"Jimmy," Jim said and hesitated again before he went on. "I hate to even mention some of the things Boudin's had to say to me, over time. I just plain won't mention some of them, to anyone, and especially not where Aunt Jo or Bea might hear. I.. I take it you know he has a … a lot of strange ideas about things he believes are entirely proper, at least for him. And he has a lot of crazed notions about the way ' a Trueborn Southron…"
"… the way a Trueborn Southron Gentleman behaves and thinks, yes, I heard quite a bit about that, while I still had some business associates in common with Remy." Randolph agreed. "And all of those truly grotesque and medieval ideas he got directly from his mother, Miss Helene Terese, as he always called her. But, nephew, I can tell you're still trying to stall me, here. And I … "
"You don't have time for that, now." Jim finished, glumly, his shoulders slumping. "You really don't, do you, uncle?"
"And no doubt Remy will be ecstatic when he learns I'm pretty well living on borrowed time, at the present. So what else does that perverse, obessively jealous maniac want from me, Torry?" Jimmy asked.
"He'd … " Jim said and sighed profoundly before going on. "He'd like it very much as long as you were there to see it, if I ever convenienced him, as you put it, Jimmy, by … removing myself … from the world … He says that would be what is needed to wipe out…" Jim finally muttered, holding his head down, as if he would avoid his uncle's gaze.
"...to wipe out my great dishonor with your life's blood!" Jimmy angrily finished, astonishing his nephew. "Gideon Boudin has always been obssessed with two things, his bizarre notion of a Southron Gentleman, and his outlandish theory of Honor and Dishonor."
"Uncle, you know I'd never do any such thing to you!" Jim exclaimed. "You know that, don't you?"
"Not to me or to yourself, Torry. Why, of course I know you wouldn't!" Jimmy answered, and pulled Jim into a hug which the younger man didn't protest a bit. "But frankly, I had no idea that Georgian had become such an utter fool as all that! After all this time and all his terrible dealings, I can hardly credit it. But it's absolutely, absolutely clear to me now. Remy Boudin still doesn't know the first thing about … about either one of us!"
"Well, I … I guess you're right. He surely thinks he does, though. And there've been times when I nearly believed him. 'm purely sorry about that, Jimmy." Jim sighed, but he was shaking with relief.
'torry, listen to me, now, boy. You have nothing, nothing whatever to be sorry about, where I'm concerned. And that's, that's what I was doing such a poor job of sayin' to you, earlier on today." Jimmy said, sitting back a bit. "I have known Boudin for forty two years, as of this fall. That's ten years more, Torry than you've had breath in your body. And if I had not so completely misunderstood the boy Boudin was when I first knew him, I don't even want to think how much of this ordeal you would surely have been spared.. I can't help thinking if I had not continued a business acquaintance with Boudin, he would never have met you. Or, If I had once understood the lengths that lunatic would go to, I can only believe now you might never have been harmed by him, at all."
"No, uncle. Absolutely, absolutely no. I don't agree. So, hear me out, on this point. Mac and his team, which I've been part of since … October of '61, as well as a lot of other agents we know, have found out, time and again what an obsessed person will do, what lengths they will go to. We've found out in fact, that a person like that, in this case, Boudin, will literally stop at nothing, push past any obstacles, and do whatever they must to reach their goals." Jim replied.
'they will do all of that, and do it again, again and again, until some other person or agency stops them. They move from obsession right into mania, and from mania on into delusions of grandeur, or revenge or both, sometimes. And when that happens, I know of people who've done things that otherwise were impossible to them. That's not very comforting, but it's all too true."
"And so we come round again to the notion that I don't owe you any sort of debt, Torry, for what's happened to you?" Randolph asked. "And you insist that your momma and your Daddy, both would take your side of the argument, is that so?"
"Yes, sir. I believe they would. And you don't agree with me on that, do you?" Jim responded, with a tired half grin on his face.
"I do not, and for this reason: I stood up for you, Torry, when you were baptized in the room you were born in, because your momma greatly feared another tragedy could happen, as did with your sister Cynthia Anne and your brother Arthur Andrew." Jimmy answered. "And at that moment, I swore to G-d, and to your dear parents, that I would watch out for you, if ever they could not.
Well, Torry, you know all too well, how long your angel momma's been gone from us, now. And Steven, who I'm glad to say I made friends with again, has been gone these six years, nearly seven. And my strong feeling so far, in all this trouble, is that I failed them, and I failed you. And now I have a chance to spare you a lifetime of darkness, nephew. And I feel I do owe you that chance, Torry. I do feel I owe that to you, and to both your parents."
"You're trying to wear me down here, Jimmy. And you're not doing too badly." Jim admitted, sighing. " But I … I can't unmake a decision like this one on the double quick. And the truth is, especially since that batch of fraud posing as doctors came up here… I've had it fixed in my mind that I have to take things as they stand and live my life out… the way I am, right now."
"Well, I see I'm gonna have to ask you in moment about these fraudulent doctors, Torry." Jimmy said. "But right now all I want to ask is why you would come to that conclusion."
Jim frowned and bit at his lower lip. He'd known someone would ask him this and he wasn't ready with an answer. He wasn't ready with an answer he liked much, at least. "Well, for one thing, there's no guarantee Miguel's procedure will give me back any vision. He's been thoroughly honest about that. And I understand it, and I .. just have to say no, I'm not doing that, uncle. Because we could go through all this for no good result. You can figure that now, can't you?"
"No, no, Torry, you're just stalling me again." Jimmy answered him bluntly. " And it maybe you just need more time for this. So, I'll give you what I can, nephew, of course. And as things stand, I can give you, well, from what young Doc Hi down to home has been kind enough to be thoroughly honest about with me, I can reasonably give you until some little time after your cousin Pauly's birthday. You remember how we used to sometimes celebrate both your birthdays together, Torry?"
"Pauly's is the 31st, and mine's the 2cnd of July, so we'd … we'd have a big to-do in the middle of the month, to be … to be fair… " Jim replied, numbly, squeezing his eyes shut. "Jimmy, uncle, I was wrong. I said I can't unmake my decision on this quickly. But the more I … try to think this through, the more I know I can't go back on what I've decided, not now, not ever. And I want you to try to understand my reasoning on this, please, just try." Jim said, holding one one hand in a familiar, emphatic gesture.
"I'm not… I didn't lose my sight because of anything Boudin did to me, Jimmy. He had nothing to do with why that happened to me. So, even if I thought you had a due bill where I'm concerned, it doesn't have my … blindness on it. I lost my sight because of my own recklessly angry, dangerously boneheaded mistakes. And if you don't believe me, you can read my partner's reports on what did happen that day in Baltimore.
What happened is that I went out on a case while I was in a raging temper. That's damned recklessness. What happened is that I tried to use a cover disguise that was way too easy to be literally seen through. That's dangerously stupid. And what happened is that I completely botched my job TWICE that day, which is to protect the President's life. In the first instance, the Man saved his own life, and mine. And in the second, a sad, sick, young girl died. Liesl Branoch died because somehow, despite years of training for just that kind of situation I couldn't get a an Army Colt revolver out of her hands and toss it out a window, or down the hall somewhere. And that's when that same Colt, and the whole case literally blew up in my face, Jimmy.
So, all of that is on my due bill, Uncle, not yours, ever. So like I said before, I have to learn to accept this, the way things are with me, right now. I have to just acknowledge my failings and live with the consequences. I have to do that, if I'm gonna claim to be a grown man and not a dependent child or an invalid, forever. And that's what you and Grandma Jean and Dad all taught me.
So, we're … we're fine, except for two little problems: I've got a raging headache again, and that's getting really old with me, lately. And my uncle, who I love with all my heart, my uncle, who helped to raise me and never did me the least harm in all his life, my uncle, who is all I have left of my mother and my grandparents … is … " Jim swallowed hard and still couldn't say the word.
"Dyin', yes, Torry." Jimmy finished for his nephew, putting one hand on each of Jim's shoulders. "And I won't go against your wishes, nephew. You are a fine, fine, brave young man. Your momma and Daddy, your grandparents, they're all terribly proud of you, Torry, just as I am. Now I know that's true, so you surely must know it, as well."
"Sometimes, I think I can hear momma, whisperin' to me." Jim said, very quietly, so that only his uncle heard him. 'sometimes, especially when I was first aware of being stuck in that … place in Baltimore, I could almost see her. And it … it's like an ache, but …a good one… And I think you … Jimmy, I think you understand that, better than just about anyone I know… But I think I'd better let you rest up from your train trip … I'd better … I'm sorry to … to disappoint you, Jimmy. I am, truly."
"Torry, it's not possible for you to disappoint me, not one bit, ever." Jimmy protested. "But if you've still got that headache, nephew, I'd think you should get some rest as… Torry, Torry, boy, what is it? Whatever's the matter?" Jimmy exclaimed when Jim turned pale as damask and reached for his chest, with both hands.
"Torry! Jimmy! James!" a chorus of voices called out, as Jim's knees buckled and he toppled towards the library's thick carpets. His headache seemed to abruptly drop to his chest, squeezing off his breath and driving his heart into frantic, lopsided pumping. His head and stomach whirled sickeningl, and he could no more keep his feet than he could walk on water. Sounds grew horridly sharp around him and his own throat seemed to close up on him. He would have collided with the heavily carved library table beside him, except that Jimmy and Artemus both caught Jim and broke his fall.
"James, what on earth?" Artemus called out. But his partner was barely conscious, still gasping, now face up on the floor. 'miguel, Jacques what in the very devil's the matter with Jim?"
"I'm afraid I may know more about this than your friends, Mr. Gordon." Jimmy Randolph said, as the doctors worked to help Jim. "Jessy Anne, Torry's momma had an attack like this around the same age he is now. And old Doc Hi said it was caused by a heart murmur, a heart murmur she had after a girlhood bout of rheumatic fever. He later said that might have grown worse and taken my sister's life at some point in her late thirties or early forties.
But of course she died in that awful fire when my nephew had just turned five years old. And when he was eleven, after a bout of scarlet fever, Torry was sick again for months with the same rheumatic fever. A dozen or more of his schoolmates took sick as well that summer, and five of those children passed away. It was not long after that, with all the cares and worries he'd been struggling with, that we nearly lost Stephen and I formally took on Torry's guardianship."
"Torry, this is a digitalis tablet, the same kind as one of the medications we gave Artemus last year." Miguel was sternly telling his patient. And you're going to take it down, and you're going to keep still a little while longer while it does it's work. I'll hear no arguments, and no complaints from you on this question. You've been pushing too hard now for weeks, learning the geography of Isle d' Tresor, romping with Micah Diego, preparing your own report of recent events for your superiors, and working to 'hold the reins' of the Companies, or at least of V Company' once more. So now, just blink to show you understand your doctor's orders."
Jim blinked and gave a small, weary smile as he complied. "I …I just want… to … know…" Jim whispered. "… who… sat that ele… elephant… on… my chest."
"You did, partner." Artie answered, frowning darkly at the younger man. "Now shush!"
"That medicine, that's foxglove, isn't it, Doctor?" Bea Parry asked, looking worriedly at her friend's nephew. 'my first husband was a chemist of sorts in Glasgow. He sometimes explained to me the compounds he doctors asked him to make for their patients."
"It's a derivative of that type of plant, Mrs. Parry, very effective in improving or steadying a patient's heart rate, not just edema or swelling in the muscles, including the cardiac muscle." Jacques answered, and turned back to frown at Jim. 'mon enfant, as your long time physician and friend, I am not pleased at all to find you so neglecting your health of late. After all, this presente malaise comes as no surprise."
"No surprise?" Artie echoed, staring at his friend from Montreal. "Jacques, you knew about Jim having … what, a heart murmur? He's had this kind of attack, this kind of collapse before now? And if so, why didn't I know about it? Why wasn't James' partner told?"
"Be… Because… partner… I … didn't… col…collapse b'…fore…t'…day." Jim replied shaking his head at Artie. "Just… had… a … tiny … little… tiny little twinge… some… times."
"Silence, mon enfant." Jacques chided his patient and then turned to answer Artemus. "As Miguel points out the challenges Jim faces have not decreased of late, only were not told, mon ami, because it was a matter of patient-doctor confidences. Also, Jim was and is still astoundingly healthy considering what he's recently endured. That being the case before today's event, there was no reason to sound a general alarm. "
"No… no reason?" Artie frowned. " Jim's saying some little twinges? I know all about that kind of down-playing, Jacques. He's had a significant heart problem all his life and … nobody bothers to tell me, his partner to watch out for it? Mon docteur ami, this, this is nothing like what you said or did when I had either of my little heart problems. Just why is that?"
"Artemus if you wish me to say in this company that you could have died on either occasion that you had your 'little heart problems', I will. And if you wish me to go on the record stating how many years older…"
"I most certainly do not." Artie protested, pursing his mouth and glaring at the Canadien.
"You… you … tell him… mon… tell …him, Jacques." Jim whispered, grinning in something much more like his usual day bright style.
" Encore, silence, mon enfant!" Jacques ordered, and was surprised when Jim did as he'd been told.
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