Джеймс Филип - Travels Through the Wind

In the couple’s absence Leonora’s father’s cronies had arrived en masse, now captains of industry, merchant bankers and a host of local dignitaries rubbed shoulders as the evening drew in.

Leonora reluctantly surrendered her hero to the great men of New York who clustered about him hoping, no doubt, that a little of his magic star dust would brush off upon them.

“They’re talking about Cuba and how it will hit the stock market if there’s a blockade, or something,” Maud Daventry-Jones announced, joining her friend in comfortable chairs a little outside the jostle of the party. This was their parents’ jamboree and they both felt out of things. “Alex is being fearfully bullied to tell people what he thinks is going on down in the Gulf of Spain…”

“He’s a big boy,” Leonora smiled archly. “He can look after himself.”

“You two were upstairs an age?”

“Yes,” Leonora agreed, smugly.

Maud giggled and patted her friend’s arm.

“Alex doesn’t really know what’s going on down on the Border or in Florida,” Leonora said without prompting. “Not that he would tell me if he knew, I suppose.”

“Has he ever talked to you about what it was like when he was down in Alta California and the Rio Grande country the first time?” Maud pressed, her voice pitched lowly confidential.

“He claims it was a quote: ‘Hell of a party once or twice a month and unbelievably boring the rest of the time’,” Leonora sighed. “But I never know if he’s teasing me. All I know is that he can’t wait to get back down there. How dumb is that?”

“Men!” Maud sympathised.

“Junior’s kicking again.”

The other woman tentatively placed the fingertips of her left hand on her friend’s belly.

“Yeah, I feel it…”

Leonora held Maud’s palm against her so she could get the full ‘kicking’ experience. She tried not to get ‘sloppy’ about these things but the last year, leastways since Alex had got out of jail, had been the happiest of her life. She had got to like herself, accept she was who she was and being married to Alex was well, living the dream. Her greatest fear was that her life would◦– or never could be◦– this sweet again.

A shadow passing through her peripheral vision snapped her out of her brief introspection.

Albert Stanton bowed and offered his hand to her.

“Albert,” Leonora smiled, offering her cheek for the newcomer to bow low and kiss. “We’d almost given up on you!”

“Many apologies,” the reporter grimaced. “I was detained in Manhattan. The Globe is publishing more than its fair share of tittle-tattle in its evening edition and the lawyers were in a dead funk.”

Leonora and Maud Daventry-Jones had got to their feet.

They had both got to know the dapper journalist◦– whose evidence, had it been listened to by the New York Constabulary the morning after Empire Day would have immediately cleared Alex and Leonora of any involvement in that day’s atrocities◦– who had done so much to publicise the two women’s campaign for justice last year.

Truth be told, Leonora was very aware that Maud went positively ‘stupid’ whenever Albert was around. Presently, her friend was blushing and smiling and shifting nervously on her feet as if she was a teenage girl in the first flush of unreasoning infatuation.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the trial of the Fielding brothers, Albert, whose support in print for Leonora and Maud’s campaign to free Alex, had subsequently earned him access to the exclusive ‘Shinnecock Hills’ club-cabal of bankers, industrialists and colonial legislators loosely orchestrated by Sir Maxwell Coolidge, Leonora’s father, and subsequently, his journalistic career had taken off like a rocket bound for some distant stellar body.

By repute he had been the highest paid, most in demand ‘scribbler’ in the First Thirteen, even before through Alex and Leonora he had been introduced to Abe and Kate.

Albert Stanton’s eagerly expected book about Abe and Kate◦– formerly ‘Fielding’ now ‘Lincoln, Leonora still had not got her head around that one◦– was expected to go straight to the top of the bestseller lists in New England and in the Old Country when it was published, an event provisionally scheduled for the autumn.

“Is it true you are besieged by Paris movie makers these days, Albert?” Leonora asked coyly.

The man grinned.

“Not quite. Abe and Kate have the final say on everything even though they are, how can I put it,” he shook his head, guffawed wistfully, “totally disinterested in money. Which I know, in the First Thirteen must sound like something of an oxymoron!”

“I thought you’d got around that, Mr Stanton?” Maud inquired timidly, lowering her eyes as she spoke.

“Yes, sort of. Abe and Kate don’t want to earn a penny from the book or any future sale of the movie rights to their story. They’ve engaged me to write the book on the proviso that the royalties due to them should be paid directly to the Royal Navy (New England) Benevolent Fund, a Canadian Trust managed by the Elders of the Iroquois Nation which teaches native children to speak and write the English language, and the Empire Day Society which alleviates the hardship of people injured in or otherwise economically disadvantaged by the events of 1976. The same deal will apply to the sale of the film rights. I’m travelling to Paris in a week or so to see the colour of the movie men’s money.”

“Albert gets to keep fifty percent of the royalties,” Leonora explained, not entirely helpfully.

The man was urbane about it.

He removed his spectacles◦– steel-rimmed today◦– and began to wipe the left lens with a small white cloth retrieved from an inside pocket.

“For the book royalties, yes. For that I initially agreed a fifty-fifty split with Abe and Kate. The movie rights will be split thirty-three percent to sixty-seven percent in Abe and Kate’s favour. Actually, I plan to donate half of my share of both deals to the Empire Day Society. The Admiralty Dockyards have been good at supporting their own people but the EDS does a really good job looking after all the other people who got caught up in the mayhem out in the Upper Bay that day.”

“That’s incredibly generous of you,” Maud gushed.

“Actually, to be frank, I feel like a complete fraud making any money at all out of the Empire Day business,” the man frowned in self-deprecation. “Honestly, it’s not as if I’m short of a few pennies to rub together these days. Perhaps, Abe and Kate have got it right…”

He looked to Maud with no little concern.

Leonora thought her friend was about to swoon.

“Quickly, Albert,” she suggested, struggling hard to keep a straight face. “Quickly, take Maud’s arm and get a couple of stiff drinks down her neck before she faints!”

Stanton hesitated.

“Now! Can’t you see she’s absolutely besotted with you, man?”

“Leonora!” Maud complained, suddenly sobering.

Albert Stanton’s response was measured.

“Oh,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Is that so, Miss Daventry-Jones?”

Leonora rolled her eyes, suspecting Maud really would swoon now.

However, in the event her friend surprised her.

She blinked up◦– Maud was little more than five feet tall◦– at the Manhattan Globe’s star reporter with quietly determined eyes.

“Yes, Mr Stanton,” she admitted defiantly. “That would be pretty much the size of it.”

The man considered this, albeit not for very long.

“Well,” he sighed, “that’s a very good thing to know. Perhaps, in that case we ought to find somewhere a tad quieter where we can sit and discuss matters further?”