§ § § -- November 30, 1980
Just at that moment, Leslie was awake again after napping the afternoon away, listening to Mariki concluding her cleaning in the upstairs bathroom. After a minute the wiry young Polynesian woman returned to stand in Leslie's doorway. "Okay in here, Miss Leslie?" she asked, sounding unusually solicitous; Mariki's temper had a somewhat short fuse, and she wasn't known as the friendliest of Roarke's employees, though she always showed respect to her employer and treated Leslie kindly.
"Yeah, just bored," Leslie admitted with a half-smile. "I've run out of books to read, and I've slept too much to be drowsy."
"I understand that," Mariki said and chuckled. "Okay, I'll see if there's anything I can do in Mr. Roarke's room. You keep listening for him and Mr. Tattoo, and let me know when you hear them come back."
"Got it," Leslie agreed, and watched Mariki disappear down the hall. She could just see the door to Roarke's room, which was almost always kept closed; Mariki left it open a few inches when she went inside, and Leslie settled back in the bed, drumming her fingers on the covers and letting her mind wander.
Then she heard the inner-foyer door open and sat up in bed to call out to Mariki; but the scuffling she could hear downstairs kept her silent. Her adrenaline and fear were still on the rise when she heard a woman's voice cry out in pain and desperation, "Please, Mr. Roarke…help me!" It was Lorraine Peters, she realized, and gasped.
She still heard the scuffling, accompanied by two pairs of footsteps, and gripped the edge of her mattress, listening, frozen with the same terror she'd felt the night before and thus too frightened to call out. The noises seemed to recede; faintly she heard Lorraine's plea for help once more before the sounds disappeared entirely.
Mariki emerged from Roarke's room, her face a mask of puzzlement, and came down the hall, then stared at Leslie. "I did hear something. What's the matter?"
"I think Jack the Ripper's back. I heard our guest calling Mr. Roarke to help her, but he isn't back yet." Mariki's presence had given her an enormous measure of relief. "I think they went out through the time-travel room—"
Before she could say any more, they both heard the door downstairs open again, and Mariki peered down the stairwell. "It's Mr. Roarke and Mr. Tattoo," she said and called down, "Mr. Roarke! We're up here!"
"Is everything all right?" they heard his voice from below.
"No," Leslie shouted down from the bed. "Not even a minute ago somebody brought Miss Peters in here—she was yelling for help. I think Jack the Ripper got to her and took her back to London through that special door. They just now got out. You've gotta go after her before he kills her!"
"Tattoo, quickly, go up and stay with Leslie and Mariki. I'll be back momentarily," said Roarke hurriedly, and Tattoo headed directly for the stairs. Roarke paused just long enough to be sure he got up there all right, then swiftly moved through the time-travel room and let himself out the special door, into a characteristically foggy and chilly London night.
He was just in time: Albert Fell had a terrified Lorraine Peters by one arm, so tightly that she couldn't pull herself loose, and was so bent on doing away with her that he made a tactical error. He stopped on the sidewalk, in full view of any witnesses, and lifted a small, sharp, curved silver instrument. "I have the remedy for all your ills, harlot!" he spat.
Roarke lost no time and sprang forward, seizing the hate-crazed doctor by the arm that held the weapon. He stared directly into the man's eyes, a particular purpose about him; Fell, unable to break the gaze, stared back, his face slowly undergoing a metamorphosis from rage to increasing fear, as though he saw his ultimate fate in Roarke's eyes. Lorraine fell back a few steps and watched, amazed and a little confused.
The staredown seemed to last half a century, with Fell looking more and more hypnotized; his left hand slowly opened and the tool it held clattered to the pavement. "Nooo," he moaned at last, shielded his face with the same hand and pulled away from Roarke, fleeing down the foggy street. Neither Roarke nor Lorraine had time to do anything more than react when they saw the man dart into the street, directly into the path of an approaching horse and carriage. Fell saw and heard them, pausing and staring as though caught in automobile headlights. By the time he seemed to find the presence of mind to react, it was too late, and the contraption ran him down as he screamed. It was the last sound he ever made. Lorraine hid her face in Roarke's shoulder.
Roarke looked on in grim silence as the driver of the carriage jumped down and knelt to examine the body on the pavement. A few doors popped open in the immediate vicinity and voices began to rise, asking excited questions. Roarke looked at Lorraine and smiled faintly as a particularly thick tendril of fog hid the gruesome scene from their view.
"Let's go back," he said quietly. "Your fantasy is over now."
"Thank you, Mr. Roarke," Lorraine murmured, shaky with relief, and willingly followed her host back through the door and into the warmth and safety of the main house. Tattoo and Mariki heard their return and both hurried downstairs.
"Are you all right, Miss Peters?" Tattoo asked anxiously.
"Just fine, thanks, Tattoo," Lorraine said and smiled. "Thanks to Mr. Roarke here."
"Good," Tattoo said and smiled broadly back.
Roarke smiled too and addressed Mariki. "Everything is all right; the danger is past," he said. "If you like, you can return home now, and thank you for staying with Leslie."
"I was glad to do it, Mr. Roarke," Mariki said and smiled. "Good night." She departed, and Lorraine left after her, looking pensive and introspective. Roarke let her, knowing she needed time to recover from what Fell had put her through.
"Mr. Roarke?" came Leslie's voice from above, and he and Tattoo grinned at each other and went up to tell her what had happened. Roarke was quietly relieved; his ward would sleep much better tonight!
§ § § -- December 1, 1980
With Leslie still sick in bed and slated to remain home from school for the week, Roarke and Tattoo went without her to the plane dock to see off their guests. Stanley Hocker and Dina DeWinter arrived in the first car, and Roarke was glad to see that Hocker's final attempt to show the lady his true self had succeeded. "Well, I must say, you make a most charming couple," he observed.
"Dina and I are discovering we have a lot in common, Mr. Roarke," Hocker said.
Miss DeWinter smiled. "I can never thank you enough for helping us find out about each other and ourselves."
Tattoo offered, "Sometimes life opens up just like a beautiful flower."
Roarke stared at him, impressed. "Well said, Tattoo! Very good!" Tattoo beamed, and he turned back to their guests. "Oh, Miss DeWinter, is your aunt staying on?"
"She and Monty seem to have worked out some kind of arrangement. They're off to Rome…somewhere." She shrugged and grinned. "She's very happy."
"And so are we," Hocker put in and grinned. They made their farewells, and Roarke and Tattoo watched them depart up the dock to the charter.
The second car discharged Lorraine Peters and Robert West, who paused in front of their hosts; Roarke began, "Ah, Miss Peters, Mr. West…"
"I'm not gonna ask you if you enjoyed your fantasy," Tattoo interjected smoothly, earning himself a rather confused stare from Roarke.
Lorraine, recovered from the previous evening's events, replied, "Well, let's just say it was satisfying, Tattoo." The Frenchman grinned, and she looked at Roarke. "I'm not going to publish my book after all. Just knowing the truth is enough." West looked a little sur-prised at her words, but she merely smiled at him.
Roarke nodded, then remembered something. "Oh…" He withdrew a clipping from an inner pocket of his jacket. "Speaking of truth…here is a news item from the London Dispatch of 1888, which I don't believe you have in your collection." He handed it to Lorraine, who read it over while West looked at it over her shoulder.
" 'Tragedy in Whitechapel'," she read. " 'Dr. Fell, Well-Known Physician, Killed in Accident While on Mission of Charity!' " The last three words came out with gentle irony, and she looked up to meet Roarke's gaze. "Well," she said with a grin, handing the clipping back to him, "we know the truth, don't we, Mr. Roarke? I think it's best we leave it that way. Thank you." They shook hands, said their goodbyes, and Lorraine and West struck off for the dock as Roarke and Tattoo gazed after them. With a soft chuckle, Roarke stashed the clipping back into his pocket, sure that this weekend was one they wouldn't soon forget.
§ § § -- July 4, 2006
Christian actually looked shell-shocked as Roarke wound up the tale. "Imagine if Leslie hadn't contracted that illness…who knows if she would even be alive at this moment!" He pulled himself closer against her and wrapped an arm around her. "Jack the Ripper, of all the past characters who could have come through time…"
"I never actually saw him, my love," Leslie pointed out, trying to reassure him. "I heard him all right, plenty of him. But I never set eyes on him. Not, of course, that I would have wanted to see him. I was scared enough just having to hear him moving around in this room. Yeah, that really was some weekend."
"One of those that tend to stand out in my memory, yes," Roarke agreed with a small ironic smile.
"No wonder." Julie groaned aloud. "Do you realize what he could've done if you hadn't caught up with him?"
"All too well," Roarke assured her. "Now, before you find reason to reprimand me any further for merely having granted the fantasy in the first place, suppose we move on to some-thing else entirely. Something much happier, perhaps?"
"Like the weekend Tattoo met Solange," Leslie offered. "That was when he fell honestly in love for the first time, and got really serious about someone. Not that it quite stopped him from ogling the girls, but he was never as blatant about it after he met Solange, I thought. Do you think so, Father?"
"It occurred to me to notice that as well," Roarke said and chuckled. Between them, he and Leslie related the story of that weekend, making Julie's eyes shine with romantic empathy and Rogan and Christian laugh now and then.
§ § § -- February 16, 1981
For more than three weeks Leslie had been asking the same question of Roarke every afternoon as soon as she got in the door from school: "Is it here yet?" Each time Roarke had had to tell her no; today, before she got the question out of her mouth, he said, "Yes, Leslie, it's finally here. Kali delivered it this morning."
"Oh, great!" she exclaimed, leaping exuberantly off the two steps into the foyer and rushing to Roarke's desk, where a small package bearing the simple address Leslie Hamilton, Main House, Fantasy Island sat. "I can't wait to see the look on Tattoo's face when he opens this one!" she added, dropping her books onto a club chair and pulling away the layers of brown paper that concealed the contents of the package.
"You were fortunate to get those paints at all, you know," Roarke told her. "That's part of why it took so long for them to arrive. In fact, I have it on good authority that it should have taken far longer."
She looked up at him curiously. "Really? Well, maybe they put priority on it because you helped me get it." She smiled at him, and Roarke smiled back, watching her pull off the last of the paper and carefully open the little white cardboard box that was revealed. Inside lay four tubes of paint in rare colors, ordered especially from a tiny artist-supply company in a French-speaking canton of Switzerland which created and mixed all its paints by hand using natural ingredients. Both Roarke and Leslie had been aware for some time that Tattoo had at least a dozen unfinished paintings sitting in the small sunny studio at his cottage, just waiting for what Tattoo called "the right colors". After some less-than-subtle questioning, Leslie had managed to compile a list of the colors Tattoo wanted, and had saved money from Christmas forward so that she could get him the colors he needed the most. Roarke had found the company and had helped her order the paints.
"Oh, Mr. Roarke, look!" she breathed, lifting out a tube of shimmering copper with tiny glints in the paint. "These are gorgeous!" She handed him the first tube and took out a second, a glowing gold that seemed almost to have its own light. She laid this on the desk and extracted the remaining two: a rich, luminous green and a beautiful Caribbean blue just the pale, translucent color of the shallows on Fantasy Island's own beaches. Each color seemed to have a special richness and depth to it that couldn't be achieved by simply mixing ordinary paint colors to create approximations.
"Yes, they were very much worth the price," Roarke agreed, examining the tubes one by one with interest. "There is no doubt in my mind that Tattoo will be delighted with these. Perhaps now," he added, looking up at Leslie with a twinkle in his dark eyes, "he will finally be able to complete all those paintings."
"Yeah!" she agreed, laughing. "I was hoping I could get him that gorgeous sunset red I saw in the catalog, but I had only enough money for these four. Well, maybe he can finish some of those paintings anyway."
Roarke chuckled and opened a drawer, removing another package about the size of the one Leslie had just opened. "As a matter of fact, I acted upon your idea," he told her. "Look inside." He handed her the box, and she opened it to reveal five more tubes, including the vibrant red she had mentioned.
"Oh, he'll be thrilled, Mr. Roarke!" Leslie exclaimed. "I can't wait for Sunday…it'll be so great just to see the look on his face when he sees these. What about the big surprise you're giving him…is it really going to happen?"
"I just received final confirmation this morning, shortly after you left for school," said Roarke, sitting back in his chair with a satisfied smile. "All the plans are made and everything is ready to be put into motion. We need only wait for Saturday."
Leslie looked over at the grandfather clock, as if by doing so she could speed up time. "It's going to be the longest week on earth," she said with a sigh.
Roarke laughed. "The weekend will be here soon enough," he said. "You can pass some of the time right now by getting started on whatever homework you have. And then, after supper, I'm going to send you out to find a little hand bell."
"A what?" Leslie said blankly. "Why do you need one of those?"
"You'll see," said Roarke. "Just get the bell first, and I'll explain later. Now…go ahead and do your homework, and let me put away these paints before Tattoo walks in here and sees them." He began replacing paint tubes in their boxes, while Leslie headed for her room to get her homework done, still puzzling over the need for a bell.
§ § § -- February 21, 1981
It was clear that Tattoo didn't suspect a single thing, although he did ask Leslie why she was so antsy when he met her and Roarke on the porch to go to the plane dock. Roarke tried to improvise when Leslie went utterly still, staring at Tattoo with wide eyes. "Too much pent-up energy, my friend, no doubt," he said, giving Leslie a sharp look when Tattoo wasn't watching him. "She has been sitting in school all week, and is simply happy for the arrival of the weekend."
"Right," said Leslie, trying to take her guardian's cue. "Uh…can we go now?" Roarke and Tattoo looked at each other, but to her relief they agreed, just as the car arrived.
Their first guest turned out to be an unprepossessing man who appeared to be in his late thirties or perhaps early forties. "Ah," Roarke said, "Mr. Jerome Pepper, a shoes salesman at Latham's Department Store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For seven years, he's been hopelessly in love with a young lady who works in the kitchenware department. But he has never summoned the courage to tell her of his feelings, or even ask her for a date."
"So his fantasy is for her to fall in love with him," guessed Tattoo.
"Oh, no, no, no," Roarke said. "All he asks is that, just for once, the girl of his dreams should notice him."
"He sounds like a very timid man," Tattoo observed.
"Indeed. He is a naturally shy, even self-effacing person. And the girl he loves happens to be…Miss Thalia Latham." He caught the looks of sudden understanding on Tattoo and Leslie, and nodded, saying, "That's right, his boss's daughter."
"I get it," said Tattoo. "He feels like he's trying to reach for the moon."
"And perhaps he's right, Tattoo." Roarke made an expression that looked almost like a wink. "We shall see." He turned his attention to the plane dock, and Leslie straightened up with excitement, trying to see who emerged and keep track of Tattoo's reactions at the same time. As they watched, six pretty young women stepped out of the plane cabin one by one, laughing and chattering, nearly running the native girls out of leis and drinks.
"Boss," Tattoo burst out in wonder, "I know you can do almost everything, but if every one of those girls has a fantasy—"
"The three of us would be very busy, wouldn't we?" Roarke filled in, aiming a quick wink at Leslie, whose excitement showed all too clearly on her face.
"I wouldn't mind," said Tattoo cheerfully.
Leslie grinned, and Roarke remarked in amusement, "Oh, I know, I know. But fortunately for us, none of those young ladies has asked for a fantasy."
"So what are they doing here?" Tattoo inquired with great interest.
"I have a very dear friend who is something of an artist," Roarke said, quite casually. Leslie wished she were as good at hiding her feelings. "He has always admired the work of the great French painter Toulouse-Lautrec."
Tattoo brightened. "Oh, boss, Lautrec is my favorite painter too!"
"Really!" said Roarke, looking convincingly surprised. "Then you will understand why I invited the Traditional Dance Company of Paris to rehearse on Fantasy Island."
Tattoo looked up with wide eyes. "You mean your friend wants to draw the dancers, just like Toulouse-Lautrec did at the Moulin Rouge?"
"Precisely," Roarke confirmed.
Tattoo peered hopefully up at him. "Boss…do you think your friend would mind if I watch him, uh, get his fantasy come true?"
"Ah, Tattoo, unfortunately, that is quite impossible," Roarke said with mock regret.
Tattoo shrugged. "I just thought I'd ask."
"It is impossible because you cannot watch yourself sketch," Roarke said, finally cracking his innocent façade with a half-stifled smile. Tattoo gave him an odd look, and Roarke grinned outright. "Yes, it's your fantasy, Tattoo—my gift to you."
Tattoo stared up at him in astonishment and then looked at Leslie, who bubbled, "We've been working on this for weeks! It's for your birthday!"
Tattoo's round face split into the biggest grin they'd ever seen on him, and Roarke chuckled and patted his assistant's shoulder. "Happy birthday, mon cher ami."
"Boss, my very own fantasy?" Tattoo exclaimed, delighted.
"That's right," said Roarke cheerfully. At that point his drink arrived, and he started to lift the glass, then hesitated. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I would think that just this once, you should have a drink. A small one. Right, Leslie?" She grinned and nodded, and Tattoo began to reach for the tray before Roarke caught him. "Over there," he said, gesturing to where the dancers stood.
Beaming, Tattoo headed that way, and Roarke and Leslie gazed after him, Leslie sidling closer to her guardian. "Perhaps he can make someone else's fantasy come true," he said softly to her.
"I bet he does," she said. "He's got such a big heart, I'd be amazed if it didn't happen."
Roarke smiled and slipped an arm around her, then raised his glass in the weekly greeting toast, saluting Jerome Pepper, then Tattoo, the latter with a wink. Leslie grinned and waved at the happy Frenchman.