JACK OF DIAMONDS

CHAPTER TWO

I want to apologize for not getting this up sooner…

But we’ve suffered a tragic loss on this side. Although he was not my child, not my son…well, when you have a child in your life and you watch him as he grows up with your own children; when you attend his wedding, and have him over for Christmas every year; when you buy his children presents and treat them like the grandchildren you know your own children will never give you, and he loses a child…you still feel the pain.

Linden had been born with a hole in his heart and was not expected to live without a heart transplant. He was given that reprieve, but died, last Saturday. He was not yet sixteen. As his heart-broken father said: “He hadn’t even kissed a girl.” And that’s enough of that because that’s gonna bring out the tears...

This is FREE. The next four chapters will be FREE.

After that, (so that’s two weeks from now), I’m putting it up “for sale”. The paywall goes up, and stays up. I know, I said I was going to put the PAYWALL up when I hit 1000 readers. But I want to give each of my PAID subscribers a copy of my story THE BASHFUL COURTESAN. I want to give each reader three books over the course of one year. I need money to do that. I want to give back to you for believing in me, and supporting me.

I won’t be able to give you three books a year right away. I need an income for that.

It’s going to cost me at least $2500 to print up 100 books, hardcover. And then the postage to mail them out. (All you have to do is send me a postcard with your address on it.) You can upgrade to PAID at a great savings. Substack recommends charging $50/year. I’m selling it for $30/year, and I’ll probably always keep it that low. It’s still $5/month, I can’t go any lower than that.

I don’t want to start calling out names, Velma, but some of you have been following along right from the beginning. Some of you have known me for years; some of you even went to school with me! Lorna? I’m telling Murray that he can’t let you read it off his feed—you’ll have to buy it. Patty? I know you want to read this. Theresa? And what about you, my darling Peggy?

In the coming New Year, I plan to Bring THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY back. I will be alternating stories every week. So if you were reading Locksley, you’re going to have to upgrade.

I want you to know that my SHORT STORIES AFTER 8 will always be FREE. That’s where you’ll find my novelettes and novellas—or as I like to call it, The Novella Zone. That’s where THE BASHFUL COURTESAN is. It’s where you can read THE AFRICAN SONGBOOK: A Tragedy In 5 Acts or ST. FREDA and THE BOXER’S LAMENT. These are all stories I want to print up and send out as a thank you for reading my stuff. I will continue writing my Stories after 8. I have a new one I’m working on that is quite different from anything else I’ve written.

So why don’t you take a chance on me and see where we can take this?

CHAPTER 2      

Night is fair on the dewy downs…

While Reggie was gone, Artie managed to keep himself warm by setting the wooden crates they’d packed into the van along the full length of the stone wall. Fourteen crates in total. He was quick to follow Reggie through the wide kitchen door carrying a crate of beets. He entered the kitchen and felt the heat wrapping around him as soon as he stepped through the door. There were five other cooks working. He stopped to take in his surroundings. There was a large pot of steaming water sitting on the back plate of the stove. To his left, as he stepped in, he saw a young scullery maid in the corner. She was bent over the large sink scrubbing pots in a cloud of steam. She looked up as soon as she heard Claire telling them where they should put the wooden boxes; she looked to be about fifteen.

Someone had left a crate of apples by the door, and Reggie pushed it over to hold the door open. The room was warmed by a large black and white cast iron stove with a porcelain finish; a coal scuttle backed up against a blackened wall. There was a chopping block as large as a table standing off to the right. A countertop running the length of the far wall served as the main work space. It was loaded with vegetables, eggs, rashers of bacon, slices of ham; jams and jellies, and serving plates. At the far end of the countertop was the sink where the girl was washing the pots. The room was large, spacious, and neatly organized. Jars of spices and herbs lined the walls much like one would find keys behind a hotel desk, with everything labeled in a clear, neat hand. Pots and pans were hanging from the beams overhead, gleaming in the sunlight stealing in through the large windows. The windows looked out over an herb garden in the back, where he could see the distant woods rising out of endless fields.

If you're gonna be climbing and jumping about, you better get yourself back into shape, he told himself, feeling the weight of the beets he was carrying. They hadn’t seemed as heavy when he’d loaded them into the van earlier this morning. He knew if he wanted to get into telling shape, working a month or two on Reggie’s farm would be the best way for him to go about it.

It was more than just him needing to get away from London, Artie thought. He needed a place where he could reorganize his thoughts and work out what he needed to do. Reggie being Reggie, he’d been quick to understand, and had been as equally quick to offer the farm as a place of sanctuary. What better place than the Devon countryside, Artie asked himself? A little bit of hard work never hurt anyone.

That’s what his Uncle used to say to him: a little bit of hard work never hurt anyone—which was ironic, Artie thought, considering the man had never worked an honest day in his life. He’d been an influence on Artie all the same, though. In 1909, when Artie was fourteen years old, he’d been  sent to spend the summer with his uncle. His mother had been reluctant to let her youngest son become her brother’s charge, he remembered, and it was only after that he’d understood why. All the same, it was a summer he was unlikely to forget, Artie thought, as they were soon involved in a lifestyle Artie knew he could easily grow attached to. It involved meeting widows and their charges—daughters, nieces, cousins—on the French Riviera. The idea, his uncle claimed, was to have the women pay for everything. It helped that Artie could speak French, as well as German, and Italian. It was the summer he’d lost his virginity.

But Devon was better than being back in London, he told himself. London had been nothing but trouble for him, his sister, and everyone else he knew. He’d lied to Reggie when he said he hadn’t tried looking for his old army mates. He’d even gone as far as to finding a few of them.

It was in London though, that he discovered how easy it was for him to climb the outside of a building in under three minutes. He was surprised to see how no one ever looked up. He was sure to stay in the shadows, of course, but looking down at the streets below, he’d watch people saunter by, unaware of what was happening three stories above them. He’d climb on to a balcony, enter through an open window, and take whatever money or jewels that were laying about. He’d be back down on the street before the victim even realized they’d been robbed.

He thought life in London would be easy after that; it should’ve been, he told himself. There was a job waiting for him in the family insurance business, his sister told him. But he couldn’t see himself selling insurance. The War was too fresh in his mind; there were too many memories and too many reminders of what he’d been through. The streets were full of veterans begging for handouts—armless, legless, sightless men—and while there was little they could do, and little anyone was willing to do to help them, he had to ask himself what that told him about living in London? That it would be a hard life? He’d come to that realization when he tracked down Fitzhenry, the gunnery sergeant who’d sobbed into his beer about how his wife had left him, and his children were afraid of him.

And why would he think she might stay?

Fitz had been the perfect soldier as far as the British Army was concerned. A natural born killer they’d set loose in the trenches of France. It’s easy enough to mask a man’s violent nature during the chaos of war, Artie thought, but once he returns from the Front and there’s no war for him to hide behind, what then? Who else was he going to take his anger out on, other than his wife and children? Not a woman to let herself be abused, his wife packed her bags and left him—taking the children with her and going to live with her sister in Leeds. She left him a note promising that if he ever showed up at her door, she’d cut his balls off while he slept and watch him bleed to death.

Artie wanted to ask him if she was as good as her word, but just looking at Fitz he could see he believed her. And yet, even with all that he’d lost, Fitz still refused to change. He refused to help himself. He still went out every night looking for fights.

One cold, wet, October morning, they found Fitz in an alleyway with a knife sticking out of his neck. He’d bled to death, laying in a puddle filled with his own blood. It was never clear whether Fitz bled to death, or drowned in that bloody puddle filled with his own piss. Artie supposed it would’ve been written up as a tragedy had Fitz been a more reputable man, but he wasn’t, so he died in an alley, and no one cared.

Shame to lose such a nice knife.

“Reggie says ye were something special in the War?” Claire called out from the other side of the wash tub where she was pumping water and scrubbing potatoes. Artie looked up, startled out of his memories, looking at her and reminding himself that he wasn’t in London anymore.

“That’s right, we were,” Reggie chimed up, before Artie could even utter a word.

“I believe that question was addressed to me,” Artie smiled, passing Reggie on his way out to the van.

“Ya mean, ya t’ink it was addressed to ya,” Reggie laughed, waiting for Artie to step through the door and watching him as he walked back to the van. He looked at the scullery maid briefly before looking at Claire again. “Ya have a habit of forgettin’ t’ings, sometimes, don’t ya t’ink?” he said to her, softly. “Like, who yer talkin’ to,” he added, looking to see that Artie was still out of earshot.

“What are ye talking about?”

“Who are ya talkin’ to, Claire? Me, or Artie? Sergeant Spencer, or meself? Because…I can almost unnerstand how ya feel. Ya need to know t’ings. Ya t’ink if you know t’ings, it’ll make it easier for ya to help me. But ya can’t be bringin’ that shit up. I told ya, most of us are tryin’ t’ forget what we did. Not only did ya forget who yer talkin’ to, but ya forgot that ya don’t ask someone what they did durin’ the War.” he added, looking at the others in the kitchen. “None of ya. Because we killed men. Ever’ day, we killed men. We’d rather not talk about it because some of us enjoyed it.”

“I’ll show ye what hurt is if ye don’t get those greens unloaded in time for lunch,” she said, waving a large potato at him.

“And what time would that be?” Artie was quick to ask, stepping inside and carrying three boxes of field greens. “Have you stopped working, thinking it’s lunch already?” Artie asked Reggie, waiting as he went out the door.

“I’ll have to start gettin' things ready pretty quick if we’re expecting to have it on the server by one o’clock,” Claire touted. “An’ right after lunch, I’ll have to make the biscuits for his worship’s afternoon tea. He insists he have fresh biscuits with every lunch. And with dinner at seven, God only knows how many that will be for.”

“How many is it usually for?” Artie asked, making his third trip to the door.

“Ten.”

“Ten? Is the family that big?” he asked, waiting for her to answer.

“Well, there’s Lord an’ Lady Ainsworthy. They have three daughters, an’ each has a husband, an’ then there’s the children—you couldn’t forget the children even if you wanted to, because they’re usually underfoot here in the kitchen.”

“How big’s the staff for a place like this?” he asked, waiting still.

Reggie came back in with a box full of carrots.

“The staff? Well, I can’t rightly say. There’s the five of us in the kitchen here, I can tell you that much. Mrs. Wilding’s in charge of the maids—ladies maids, parlour maids, chamber maids, house maids, the children’s nanny, then Nurse—oh, and the between maid—”

“Between maid?"

“She works where she’s needed. Here, or upstairs in the house—”

“How many rooms? I mean, you must be cooking and cleaning around the clock!” Artie laughed.

“Eighty rooms.”

“Eighty rooms! Did you hear that, Reg? That’s ridiculous.”

“I did, an’ what’s ridiculous is yer tellin’ me I should be workin’ an’ then ya stand here jawin’ with my girl.”

“Your girl?” Claire asked, trying to sound indignant, but failing. “Is that what I am to ye?”

“I'll get right to it, Reggie,” Artie laughed.

“Mr. Carhill sees to the gentlemen’s needs.”

“Carhill?”

“The three footmen serve as valets for the gentlemen—then there’s the tea boy, the stable boy, the three groomsman working in the stables, a driver for the automobiles, the Gamesman, gardener, the groundskeeper.”

“I’ve lost count already,” Artie laughed, making his way toward the door.

“Right then. What’s all this now, Miss Hansen?”

Artie looked up at a stern looking man of fifty, standing in the doorway where his large shadow crossed the floor as he casually leaned against the doorjamb. Artie walked around him. If the man had been a horse, Artie was certain he’d stand at least seventeen hands high. There was a hard look about him, as well. His face was like a weathered lump of red clay, cut deep with lines and wrinkles. He was clean-shaven, and his head bald.

“And what’s it look to be, Mr. Carhill? We’ve got greens from Reggie to unload, as I told ye.”

“And where’s O’Dowd then? I merely ask because we’re not in the habit of taking deliveries from O’Dowd on Thursday mornings.”

“Right here, Mr. Carhill,” Reggie said, stepping out of the pantry.

Artie was at the door again with a crate of greens, looking at the man blocking his way.

“I didn’t know ye were aware of what day we take Reggie’s deliveries, Mr. Carhill,” Claire replied evenly. “And what’s it to ye if we take our deliveries on a Thursday, rather than a Tuesday?” Claire asked, looking up from the tub of potatoes she was peeling.

“We run this household on a tight budget, Miss Hansen. Tight. You may not be aware of it, but Mrs. Wilding and I have to budget for anything and everything. That does not mean you can purchase what you want, when you think we need it. That’s not how this works. You should be aware of that. If we take deliveries from every local farmer whenever he feels we should, rather than when we deem it necessary, it would amount to fiscal anarchy, Miss Hansen. Fiscal anarchy.”

“Anarchy, you say?” Artie laughed, looking up at the man, he skirted past him and made his way to the pantry.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of being introduced?” Carhill said, looking at Artie from his great height on the door step.

Reggie joined Claire to face down the large man.

“He’s a mate of mine, come to stay for a time,” Reggie said. “Come on, Artie, there’s still work to be done.” He pushed his way past Carhill who moved aside reluctantly. Artie came out of the pantry.

“Come to stay with you, is he? And you think nothing of bringing him here?” Carhill asked Reggie, half-turning in the doorway.

“Work’s work, mate,” Artie said with a smile.

“And where's the harm in that, Mr. Carhill?” Claire said, dropping a potato into the tub and placing her hands on her hips. She was staring at the man with what could only be called a look of defiance.

“The harm, Miss Hansen? Don’t you see what the harm might be? We can’t have just anyone coming in to make deliveries, even if he’s a friend—or a mate—of a regular supplier. It’s all about the possible turpitudinous character of the said gentlemen.”

“Is that supposed to mean something, Mr. Carhill?” Claire asked.

“Turpitudinous character?” Carhill beamed, pleased with himself.

“Look, mate,” Artie said, approaching the man and looking up at him. “I’ve come to stay with my old army buddy Reg, here. The dikes overflowed with the rain he says you’ve had these last three days here. As a result, half his fields are flooded. I came in on the train last night, and offered to do what I could to help in the morning. We managed to salvage what we could, just the two of us. Leaving it until next Tuesday is just asking for the rot to set in. Bringing it here made more sense; salvaging what he could, made more sense. Now, do you want to stand aside and let us get on with our task, or are you going to beat her up about helping out a neighbour in need?”

“Army buddy, is it? I know what that means, all too well. I haven’t always been a butler. But, we’re not at war anymore, are we?”

“No, we’re not,” Artie smiled.

“Then why deliver on a Thursday, rather than a Tuesday?”

“I told you. His fields are flooded.”

Reggie came back in with what he claimed to be the last crate.

“I’m pretty certain refusin' to take my goods will not be conducive to a beneficial relationship for anyone around here. I’d be forced to go elsewhere, an’ they’d know the reason why, ya can be sure. Where do ya t’ink that’d leave ya when ya really need me an’ my stock? How ‘bout the next time there’s a major dinner happenin’?” Reggie said with an underlying tone that said he wouldn’t tolerate the man.

“Do you think we run a charity here?” Carhill asked.

“Charity?” Reggie laughed.

“Do you think you can just show up and drop off your goods without prior notice?”

“Prior notice? D’ya mean, sen’ advanced word? Perhaps, ring up the house an’ seek permission?” Reggie smiled.

“It’s what one would expect.”

Artie looked at Reggie and slowly shook his head; he could see Reggie’s anger growing.

“If I stood in possession of a telephone, perhaps I would’ve contacted ya. Are ya tellin’1 me I should take my goods elsewhere?”

“It might be conducive to a more beneficial relationship. Isn’t that the word you used?”

“It’s a far cry from my suspected turpitudinous character,” Artie replied.

“How’s that beneficial t’ anyone? There’re plenty of manor houses about, to be sure; I suppose we could have gone elsewhere.” Reggie mused.

“Perhaps you should in the future?”

“Now tell me why ye feel the need to be negotiating something you’re not qualified to negotiate for?” Claire asked, stepping in between the three men. It wasn’t so much a question as much it was a statement. Carhill looked down at her, and nodded, letting her pass.

“This is my kitchen, not yours, Mr. Carhill,” she said, looking up at the man. “You go look after your boys and leave the simple, everyday running of the kitchen, to me. If I say we need greens to make soup, or stew, then I’ll accept them. Even if we don’t need them at the moment, and it helps out a friend, we’ll take them. Do I make myself clear?”

“I believe I am responsible for the fiscal navigation of this kitchen—”

She looked up at him and shook her head silently as she untied her apron and laid it on the large chopping block.

“What are you doing, Miss Hansen?”

“Let’s see how you negotiate your way through lunch, shall we, Mr. Carhill?”

“Lunch?”

“Yes. I’m done here. I’m done with yer meddling. I see no need for a man like yerself, telling me how to run the kitchen. As the man said,” she pointed out, nodding at Reggie, “there are a great many houses in the area. I’ll have ye know, I’ve been contacted by several over the years, looking to lure me away from Mandalay Manor.”

“You cannot leave,” Mr. Carhill protested.

“No? Watch me. Mr. O’Dowd,” she said, looking at Reggie, “pick up those boxes and put them back into the van. He’s yet to pay for them.”

“Happy to oblige, Mum,” Reggie laughed, picking up three crates of vegetables.

“No! Leave them where they are.”

“They’re unpaid for, and as such, belong to O’Dowd. I will not tolerate yerself coming into my kitchen and trying to enforce yer measures on me, Mr. Carhill. Ye may think ye run this house, but ye know little, or nothing, about what it takes to run a house of this size. Lunch is set for one o’clock, Mr. Carhill, I suggest ye get yer staff ready to make preparations,” she said, reaching for her overcoat hanging on a peg behind the door. She walked to the largest of the chopping blocks and began to wipe down several of the knives.

“What are you doing?”

“Doing? Why, I’m leaving, Mr. Carhill. Can’t ye see that? These are my knives, and as such, I’ll be bringing them with me. Any good chef worth her salt has her own knives. These are mine.”

“You cannot simply leave.”

“No? Watch me.”