Monthly Archives: January 2018

What Maude Learned Too Late

My mother-in-law Maude was always certain she was right because of this list of wise sayings from her mother.
“You get more with honey than vinegar…what goes around comes around…”
No need to list any more of them. They’re all from Benjamin Franklin, Confucius or some other source forgotten in time. Any problem in life could be solved by one of them, and Maude was the first one to remind you of it.
Often I asked her why she thought I was wrong about everything.
“It’s not that I think you’re wrong. It’s just that I know that I am right.”
The rare instance when I was able to prove she was factually wrong and I was right and I asked why she corrected me anyway, she’d reply, “Well, I thought if I didn’t know you wouldn’t either.”
Of course, a sense of being right all the time can create an air of confidence and as we all know nothing succeeds in life more than having confidence. Her biggest success was as a bookkeeper because one and one are always two. She kept the books for the family coal company, and they always had the exact amount of money that Maude said they had. And I say this without sarcasm. Not knowing exactly how much money a business had caused a lot of bankruptcies and kept governments teetering on the brink of insolvency.
For myself, I know intellectually one and one equals two but putting it down on paper has always been the problem. It’s hard to concentrate on one and one when a pretty butterfly flutters by or I consider what happens when the wrong one tries to join to another wrong one. And what was I talking about in the first place?
Eventually Maude’s county elected her to be treasurer. This was in the 1980s when bank interest rates were double digits. She kept the county’s money in various short-term accounts with different banks, and every morning she called each bank to see what the going rates were. Then she transferred accounts to the best rate. She made her county several million dollars just by switching money around. The national association of county treasurers named her treasurer of the year. Not just of small population counties but of every county in the United States of America.
I could not, would not deny Maude this distinction and the achievement of making so much money without raising taxes, fees or penalties. I wish every politician could do that. And I’m sure Maude gave credit to one of her mother’s time-worn proverbs.
What I had trouble with was her translating her accomplishments into moral imperatives to impose her superior judgement onto how my wife Janet and I raised our children, ran our household and chopped onions. My wife Janet was smarter than I was. She was able to hide the pea of our lives as she shuffled the walnut shells right in front of her mother. I, on the other hand, was a terrible bamboozler. Everything I did was out for the entire world to see and criticize.
Maude lived a long and fruitful life. Wisely, her husband Jim became a federal coal mine inspector in his later years thereby insuring his wife had the best health insurance available as she endured several heart attacks. One cannot outsmart death forever, and eventually Maude entered Hospice and awaited the end from advancing coronary disease.
Despite how aggravated I was with how she treated my family and me, I openly admitted that this was the woman who gave birth to the woman who saved my life and gave me two wonderful children. Through the years I took her to her doctor appointments and was by her side as she went from being bed-ridden at home to many hospitalizations and finally to Hospice.
I sat next to her one day when she announced, “I’ve been going through all my mother’s sayings in my mind, and I can‘t think of one that applies right now. For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do.”
The next day when I visited, her speech was slurred and she had trouble holding up her hands. She had a letter from back home and I read it to her. I asked if she remembered the person who wrote the letter. She feebly nodded her head.
The day after that I found her asleep, a rasping sound escaping her lips. After sitting next to her in silence, I looked out the window and commented that it was raining. When I turned back I noticed she had stopped breathing.
Despite what she said, I think Maude did know what to do. She just didn’t want to do it.

David, Wallis and the Mercenary Chapter Fourteen

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Tommy Lascelles, too decent

Previously in the novel: Leon, a novice mercenary, is foiled in kidnapping the Archbishop of Canterbury by a mysterious man in black. The man in black turns out to be David, better known as Edward the Prince of Wales. Soon to join the world of espionage is Wallis Spencer, an up-and-coming Baltimore socialite. David kills an ambassador in Shanghai.
Upon his return to London, David cloistered himself inside his suite at York House, a wing of St. James Palace down the mall from Buckingham. He slept in his heavily curtained bedroom for more than twenty-four hours. Once he felt refreshed, David took a long bath, wrapped himself in a plush terrycloth robe and sat down for black coffee and toast. He chatted with his personal secretary Tommy Lascelles, an affable young man who did his best to create reasons for the Prince of Wales to take extended holidays to exotic locales for hedonistic pleasures.
“How was your voyage to the Far East?” Tommy asked, opening his activities book.
“Marvelous,” David replied, sipping his coffee. “Four different very sociable ladies going and coming. Please note when Elvira Chatsworth returns to London. Include me in some event where she is expected to attend. Has Freda called? Arrange dinner for us tonight.”
“I’m afraid that will be quite impossible, sir.” Tommy kept his eyes down as he wrote in his notebook.
“And why is that?”
“Her husband is back in town.”
“Oh, bugger that.”
“It seems his grandmother Mrs. Lavinia Ward is celebrating her ninetieth birthday and all members of the Ward family are required to attend,” Tommy informed him.
“I wish that old bag would die. She’s hampering my love life,” David muttered as he lit a cigarette. He noticed a pause in the conversation. “Do I shock you, Tommy?”
“Of course not, sir.” Clearing his throat, he added, “You must have luncheon at Buckingham Palace today. Your parents have made inquiries and know you are back from your trip to Shanghai.”
“Good God. Now I have to come up with some sort of diplomatic reasons to have been there. Have any ideas?”
Tommy raised his pen from the book and scratched the back of his head with it. “Did you speak to the ambassador?”
“Lord Chatsworth? Only in passing on the Wyndemere.”
“No, no. The other one. Stationed at the embassy. The one who died.”
“I scheduled a luncheon with him but he died the previous evening. That was odd, wasn’t it? So sudden. His head plopped into a bowl of egg nest soup.”
“So you didn’t see him.”
“Oh, I glimpsed him in a crowd. I was within spitting distance but didn’t get a chance to speak.
Tommy groaned. “Spitting distance? Oh the phrases you pick up.” He made a quick note. “I wouldn’t share that one with the King.”
“Actually, I was going to drop it on Mummy. She turns this delightful shade of coral when I embarrass her.”
“Tell your father the Foreign Ministry asked you to drop in on the ambassador. You couldn’t help it if the old man dropped dead.”
“Indeed not.”
“Oh. Your tailor is waiting outside.”
David’s face lit. “Does he have the plaid slacks ready?”
Tommy arched an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Send him in.”
David noticed Tommy took special care not to slam his activities book shut. Poor chap, the prince thought. Such a decent fellow. I must shock him terribly, however MI6 specifically instructed me not to include Tommy in my secret activities. After all, he is a decent fellow.
Tommy opened the door. A short, rotund man with strands of black hair slicked across his glistening dome jiggled into the prince’s boudoir, extending a pair of slacks to his highness.
“Just as you required.” The tailor beamed.
David hid a smile as he observed Tommy rolling his eyes before exiting, closing the door behind him.
“I think you will find the crotch to be perfection,” the man announced in a loud voice.
“No need for that,” David informed him. “Tommy is not the type to linger around keyholes.”
“You never know about these blokes around here.” The man slipped into a very comfortable Cockney. He looked at the pants with askance and tossed them on a chair. “Are you really going to wear those togs, are you?”
David wagged a finger at him. “Now, now. It’s your attitude that keeps you from getting assignments to nice places.”
“You can keep your nice places. They give me the heeby geebies.” He leaned in. “Did the capsule work as anticipated?”
“Perfectly. The timing was chancy, biting and spitting at the same time. One good cough and I’d been the one with his face in a bowl of soup.”
The man smiled, revealing that a couple of his canines were missing. “Dee-lightful, ain’t they? We got the poison from a new agent we picked up from America. She’s a mean one, for sure. And she knows her herbs up in those Blue Ridge Mountains. She’s got a different one for every which way you want a man to die, she does.”
“I don’t like it when you tell me too much,” David informed him.
“Bah. It’s the only fun me and me old lady have in this business.” He paused to appraise the prince. “I keep forgetting you’re one of those royal blighters.”
David laughed. “Us royal blighters love gossip too. No, the less we know about each other the safer we are. And I don’t want anything to happen to your wife or yourself. Truly. No disrespect intended.”
“It’s hard to stay mad at a bloke like you, David.” The man grumbled and turned for the door.
“A man from the organization was there in Shanghai,” the prince whispered. “He almost ruined the whole gambit. Tried to shoot the ambassador. I knocked his gun away.”
He looked back. “I feel sorry for those rotters. Why would the organization be messed up in this ambassador business?”
“Chinese drug lords want to keep the political situation there unsettled, I’m sure.”
“Oh, think of the scandal that would have been.” The old man’s eyes widened. “MI6 said they wanted the ambassador dead, but they didn’t want it to look like no murder. Nothing controversial.”
“I took care of it. I hope.”

Lincoln in the Basement Chapter Thirty-Eight

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Mrs. Frederick Lander
Previously in the novel: War Secretary Edwin Stanton held President and Mrs. Lincoln captive under guard in basement of the White House. Duff and Alethia find pretending to be the Lincolns difficult, especially with Tad coming down sick. Stanton interrupts their dinner to make sure Duff is not eating too much. Alethia finds herself romantically attracted to Duff.
“Good night, Father.” Alethia tried to hide her disappointment that Duff did not offer to share his bed with her. As she went to her room, she decided it was for the best. They should not become intimate in the middle of their mission. She wiped a small tear from her cheek and thought Duff a very wise and wonderful man. Instead of undressing, Alethia quietly listened to Duff as he removed his shoes, slacks, and shirt. She clutched her bosom as she thought of him putting on his nightshirt and slipping into bed. Shaking her head, Alethia chastised herself for her silly thoughts. A knock at Lincoln’s door caused her to jump.
“Mr. President?”
“Come in, Mr. Hay,” Duff said.
“I wouldn’t bother you so late, Mr. President,” Hay said, “but I heard something tonight that I thought you needed to know immediately.”
Alethia wrinkled her brow and went to the door to eavesdrop more efficiently.
“I was at a party…”
“Where was it?” Duff asked.
“At the home of Colonel Frederick W. Lander,” Hay replied. “You know him. The civil engineer.”
“Of course. Last I heard he was wrestling with a bout of influenza.”
“He still is. He remained in his room the entire evening. The event was a fund-raiser hosted by his wife for the federal hospitals at Port Royal, South Carolina.”
“She was an actress or something like that, wasn’t she?” Duff said.
“An angel on stage,” Hay gushed. “When I first came to Washington I was quite smitten with her. Along with many others. She had many suitors.”
Not unlike Rose Greenhow, Alethia thought. Her mind often wandered to her childhood friend and wondered if she had ever escaped prison. She knew for certain Rose had not been executed, because she would have read about it in the newspapers.
“Even Mr. Stanton, before he remarried,” Hay added, “if that can be imagined.” After an embarrassing pause, he continued, “But that’s not what I came to say. During the evening Mrs. Lander sat beside me on her davenport and told me of meeting a brash young actor at an opening-night party at Grover’s Theater—a Virginian, I believe she said—who was trying to impress her with a story about some scandalous activity he was planning with friends that would make the front page of every newspaper in the nation.”
“And what might that activity be?”
“She said he didn’t elaborate, but from his tone and manner she drew distressing conclusions.”
“Which were?”
“Kidnapping, sir, possibly assassination.” Hay cleared his throat. “Of you, Mr. President.”
The concept of losing Duff to assassins caused Alethia to lurch into the room. Thinking better of intruding into the conversation, she decided to be startled.
“Oh, Mr. Hay.” She eyed him haughtily, as she thought Mrs. Lincoln would.
“He was telling me about a party,” Duff said.
“And to give the president a gift. Going through the buffet line, I noticed a large bowl of licorice.” He pulled a handful of the black candy from his pocket and placed it on the nightstand. “I thought he might like some.”
“Oh.” Alethia sniffed. That terrible stuff. He won’t eat decent food but turns his teeth black with that disgusting candy.”
“Now, Mother, you know it’s my only vice.” Duff looked at Hay and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Hay. That was very kind of you.”
Both Alethia and Duff noticed Hay staring at the top of Duff’s open nightshirt.
“Is anything wrong?” Duff asked.
Hay paused, shook his head, and smiled, saying nothing. Alethia caught her breath, stepped forward, and then laughed.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking, seeing Mr. Lincoln shorn like a sheep,” she said blithely. “But he has a cold coming on, and I absolutely refuse to rub ointment on that dreadful, hairy chest. So he must shave every time he feels under the weather.”
“Yes.” Duff coughed.
“You’ll keep our little secret, won’t you, Mr. Hay?” Alethia fluttered her eyes.
“Of course, ma’am.” Turning a light pink, Hay backed up.
“We’ll discuss that other matter tomorrow,” Duff said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I really don’t think there’s anything to it,” Duff added. “Just chatter at a party.”
“I hope so, sir.” Hay backed to the door, fumbled with the knob, then left.
Listening for Hay’s receding steps, Alethia and Duff smiled.
“At least you got the licorice.” She nodded at the nightstand.
“Yes.” Duff picked up a piece and looked at it. “It’s the one thing I absolutely can’t stand to eat, and I must.”