Revenge of an Englishman

by Kevin Patrick

  "Now he has experienced just a small fraction of what I have gone through," I thought to myself.

  After I departed from the restaurant and returned to the hotel lobby and as I was about to ascend the stairs which led to the guest rooms above, someone called my name. Sitting in one of the chairs in the lobby, where Christopher and I frequently used to sit, was my sister. Alice wore dark and heavy clothes and a scarf around her neck. She looked at me and I looked back at her. I was surprised that she had come herself to see me and had not just sent a servant or a letter.

  "I need to speak with you privately if that is ok with you," she said to me.

  Mrs. Alice Cromwell was no doubt recognisable to many people in London city as she was married to a famous discoverer of treasure. Being a resident of Mayfair and having a large estate both in London and in other places, it was probable that many people would know who she was and be privy to her social standing and business links. Keeping up the persona of a foreigner who was not well acquainted with Alice, I greeted her and offered her to sit at the lobby and we could speak there.

  "No, here seems too public. Somewhere else please, Monsieur Levasseur," she responded.

  "I can escort you to the room that I have rented here if you think that is more suitable?" I suggested.

  "Yes, the business shall only take a matter of minutes but as it is sensitive information and I would hate for it to be overheard. I'm sure you can understand," she responded.

  "Certainly, I understand, Mrs. Cromwell. Well then please follow me and I will lead the way to my room."

  That concluded the conversation that we had in the lobby and although it was more for the benefit of the people in the lobby who could overhear us, it set a clear precedent in my mind in regards to what she wanted to speak about.

  When we reached the door of my bedroom I used my key to open the door and then I signalled politely for her to enter into the room first. Upon entering, I then closed the door and made sure that it was locked so that we could not be unexpectedly interrupted. The first thing me and my sister did was hug each other. Then I asked her how she was following the actions of James Cromwell the night before, not forgetting that he had thrown a glass bottle at her when he was in a drunken rage. She told me that she was ok and that this morning her husband had sobered up and was apologetic for his behaviour.

  "And you forgive him?" I asked a little surprised.

  "I understand why he is high strung at the moment. I think in similar circumstances, everyone would be the same."

  "Not everyone would do the actions that he had done, alongside Edward and Charles, to lead to such a bizarre set of circumstances from ever happening," I responded.

  Putting her hand into her thick black jacket, Alice removed a slip of paper from one of the inside pockets of the jacket. The slip of paper was folded and when she took it out of her jacket she unfolded it and took a glance at it. She then said that the contents belonged to me and then she handed me the slip of paper.

  "It won't put everything right, far from it, but it is certainly the least that you deserve. I love you, William," she said as she handed me the slip of paper.

  I looked at the slip of paper and saw that it was a document issued from the bank. It was a transfer slip that was needed to withdraw funds from a bank account and the document was already filled out and signed by Alice. The bank account was Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell's, and the number of funds that were being made available to be withdrawn from it was significant. The amount proposed by Alice to give me was no doubt the majority of Edward's and Charles' recouped portion of the treasure and it was so large that if I accepted it I would never need to worry about money again in my life. Even if I raised a family and bought several houses, the threat of returning to poverty would not transpire. The sum of money that she had just handed me was larger than the amount I dreamed of finding when I first set out for the buried treasure.

  "You can withdraw the money owed to you today from the bank. I will go with you and then you can take the banknotes and do with them whatever you will," Alice said to me.

  "I presume James does not know that you are giving away some of his wealth?"

  "It is over three-quarters of the fortune, but you deserve it more than he does, brother."

  Doing quick math I calculated the value of the remaining quarter that was left to James Cromwell and it was still a sizeable amount. All the luxuries of his house, position in society and properties around the country were still well affordable with his remaining money.

  "Does James know that you are giving such a large stake of the fortune away?" I asked my sister the question once more.

  "No, he is still not in a good mental state and money is the last thing that is on his mind. I will eventually tell him when he gets better and I will think of some story or excuse that will explain the absence of his money."

  "I see," I said thinking over her words.

  "I didn't just come to give you the money, William. I came to speak to you again about James and ask you to spare his life."

  I had already known that it was one of her motives for meeting me. It was obvious. Although I could not be sure and I didn't want to ask, I could assume that she had spent the majority of the night and morning thinking about it. She wanted her husband's life spared even though he had attempted to kill me, even though he was responsible for destroying our family by driving my parents and brother to an early grave and even though he had attempted to physically harm her last night. I looked at my sister's face as I mulled over her words, she looked like my sister and she had behaved like my sister since we had been reunited, but this proposal was unreasonable.

  "I don't expect you to forgive him, but just don't harm him," Alice added. "I know I am asking a lot of you, but if you can do this for me, your sister, I will go with you directly to the bank and withdraw this money for you."

  The journal that I had used to record the account of my trials and tribulations was hidden under the mattress of my bed. As my sister looked at me and waited for a response to her offer, I went and retrieved the journal. She wanted me to stop my mission of revenge, something that I had waited almost four long years to fulfil. I thought that she only asked me such an unfair thing because she did not know the entirety of my journey. I handed her the journal and told her what the contents of the book contained and then I told her to read it. I told her if she wanted to understand what had happened to me in my absence, why I was the way I was and why I wanted to get revenge on her husband then she needed to read the journal to understand the torture I had to endure. She took the book and opened it on the first page, I told her the secret code that I used when writing the journal so that she could easily decode my entries into the book.

  An hour passed between Alice submitting to my request to read the journal and her finishing the last page that I had written. The journal was up to date so it included the events of the previous night's ball with particular detail paid to James Cromwell's appearance, behaviour and drunken actions. Once Alice had finished reading the book she hugged me now knowing the extent of my torture and why I had been absent for so many years. She asked me many questions and wanted to know many things about my time. It was uncomfortable talking about pain and anguish and the many other emotions that I had experienced throughout that time, but it was also therapeutic to be able to converse with someone about it all.

  "I won't pretend that I'll ever understand what you've been through," Alice then said. "But William, tell me you won't hurt James."

  "After all that I've been through, you still want me to promise you that I will not cause any physical harm to James Cromwell, one of the three people that tried to murder me?"

  "Yes," she said hesitantly.

  "You want me to swear not to attack the man who threw me overboard?"

  "I want you to swear," she again confirmed.

  "And if I say to you now that I will not hurt him then what will happen?" I enquired.

  "Then I will go to the bank with
you and get you your money."

  “I mean what will happen between us, Alice?"

  "We will stay the same as we are now. We are and always will be brother and sister, William."

  "Fine," I said. "I will cause no physical harm to James Cromwell because you have asked me not to."

  As I made the promise to my sister I felt cold and a shiver ran down my back. I couldn't believe the words that I was saying. They were words that I never thought that I would utter. The words did, however, have a positive effect on Alice and she smiled happily and hugged me once more. She then was adamant that we go to the bank so that she could retrieve the large fortune for me.

  The walk to the bank took fifteen minutes and that was the most strenuous part of the procedure. Upon entering the bank we were escorted to a private area where an employee sat behind a desk and there were two wooden seats in front of it for Alice and me to sit on. The employee took the slip of paper, asked Alice for confirmation about the withdrawal amount, and then the employee started to do some paperwork to process the withdrawal. Since I didn't have an account with the bank nor any papers to confirm my identity, the employee said that the transferring of funds was a little more difficult than the normal procedure, but he was adamant that the exchange would still be easily done. In the end, I was given ten individual paper-slips and the value of each slip was split evenly among the ten of them. The employee at the bank told me that the money was being held at the bank, in its vault, for security reasons and that whenever I wanted to withdraw the money I would need to produce a slip, and then they would give me the money in the amount of the value of that slip. I could withdraw all the money in one go or take it out gradually. The choice was mine as the money was now mine. He restated that it was vital that I kept the bank-slips as they were the only things that were needed to withdraw the money and without them, the process could not be done.

  With the bank finished and the promise made to Alice in regards to her husband, she told me that she had to return to her house where the servants, her aunt, her husband, and her children were probably wondering where she was. Standing in the street, in a public place with many people walking by, we did not hug or show each other any signs of affection that siblings normally would, but instead, we acted coy. I thanked her for her kind actions, good heart and pleasant conversation. I told her that it was great to see her again and that I hoped it would not take too long until the next time we met. Alice repeated all the kind pleasantries I did in the same subtle manner as me, and then said that she would not let a full week go by without some sort of meeting with me. As we parted ways I smiled and said that I looked forward to our next encounter.

  I loved my sister and there was no questioning that. Like all people with siblings know, there is an unspeakable bond that exists. Being brought up by the same parents, living in the same house and being moulded by the same social and economic experiences creates a relationship that separation and time cannot damage. Of course, there were times in our youth, too many times to count, when we did not like each other and would not speak to one another, but we still loved each other. I knew my sister felt the same way as me on the subject. We could still love each other but feel angry, annoyed or disappointed at one another. After leaving the bank and my sister's side and returning to the hotel I felt that mixture of feelings. I loved my sister because she was my sister and it was unconditional, I felt happy and joyous that she had transferred to me more wealth than I would ever need, but I felt a little resentment at the fact that she had made me promise that I would not hurt James.

  "Not harm him physically," I repeated the words I swore to my sister.

  Unlike James and his two partners in crime, now deceased, I was a just man and I would not break the promise I made to my sister. That is not to say that I had given up on my revenge, it just meant that I had to work on getting it differently. Fortunately, I had another trick up my sleeve and I already had another plan set in motion. If this plan of mine was successful then it would yield the same favourable results for me.

  That evening Christopher Campbell visited my hotel. It was the first time he had visited me since my return to London and it was the first time we had privacy to chat openly in many weeks. He had much to tell me, but the majority of his time was unsurprisingly spent talking about Miss Jane. After a suitable amount of time spent courting her, he was certain that she was the one he wanted for a wife. He was resolute in his opinion that she was the only one for him. I congratulated him on his choice and on his heart finding love. I told him that Miss Jane was a fine match for him and that the two made an excellent match. However, I didn't tell him the reservations his father had about Miss Jane as I thought that it was not my place to break such dire news.

  "She is my light and my love and my oxygen, Monsieur Levasseur," Christopher Campbell confessed to me.

  "I am happy to hear that my friend, I truly am."

  "She is my sunlight and without her, near me, the world is a dark and lonely place," he continued. "I wish you could experience what I experience, you would believe me then when I say I will not do without her. Like a flower, I need her sunlight and without it, I will wither and die."

  "If that is the case then I suggest you consult your parents at once on the subject and try to solidify a union between you and Miss Jane."

  "Jane said that earlier, too. She said that nothing can happen without both of our parents' blessings."

  "You were with her earlier?" I then enquired.

  "Yes, she asked about you and how you were after last night. She also told me to tell you that she has started the painting that you asked her to draw last night. She said that she is certainly on schedule to complete it before the week is over."

  "Well, that is good news."

  "May I enquire about the painting?"

  "Not yet, but when it is completed I will be more than happy to allow you to see it."

  This momentary lapse in conversation was soon over and Christopher Campbell redirected the chat back to his love for Miss Jane. I had not known him to be able to speak as poetically as he had never done so before this night. It was charming but also a little agonising as I was uncomfortable with such expressions. As the night went on and we drank more whiskeys in the lobby of the hotel, his proclamations of romance became all the more unbearable to me. However, I was happy to see my friend in such good spirits and so content with life.

  Chapter 27 - Loose Ends

  The bank slips that contained more money than I had ever dreamed of were kept securely hidden in my room. I put them inside my journal and put the journal inside a coat pocket which I then put into my travelling trunk. The coat was buried deep in the trunk and was next to the pistol that Francis Farewell had given me. Both items, the slips and the pistol, were the rewards and souvenirs from a terrible time in my life. There was nothing negative about the two items except the journey I had to go through to attain them.

  For six whole days, I did nothing at all with the bank slips except to check them daily to make sure they were still there and secure. On occasion, my mind had from time to time fantasised about the future and what I could do with such an immense fortune, but other than those momentary mental distractions I was very much focused on my next plan of action. I even reprimanded myself over those few times that I allowed my imagination to look to the future instead of the present. I treated myself as if I were a surgeon or a doctor in the sense that I could not let myself get distracted from my objective, because if I did lose focus on my objective then I would not be able to yield the results I was after. My objective was the same as it had been ever since the moment I landed on a foreign shore after being thrown overboard by my contemporaries. The objective was revenge and it was almost complete.

  On the seventh day, the winds of providence blew, and the waiting that I had been subjected to finally paid off. My six days of rest had come to an end, now on the seventh day it was time for me to take action. A knocking on my hotel room door by a member of staff i
nformed me of the arrival of Christopher Campbell into my hotel lobby. It was daytime and even though our daily rendezvous took place late in the evenings, I was expecting him. The previous night he told me that Miss Jane would finish the painting that I had asked of her and he informed me that he would retrieve it and deliver it to me the next afternoon. He was now fulfilling that pledge.

  "Did anyone else see the painting?" I asked Christopher Campbell after I met him in the lobby and the pleasantries between us were concluded.

  "No, I had this white sheet covered over the painting my entire way here."

  "Do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell saw it? Did you ask Miss Jane as I asked you to?"

  "I did and she promised that no one else in the entire house set eyes on it. To be honest, I haven't even seen it. I know you wanted it to be secret and private so I made a promise to myself to not see it."

  "You truly are a good man, Christopher. I will not show the painting to you now, but I promise you will see it soon enough."

  After retrieving the painting from Christopher we arranged to meet again that evening and then we bid each other farewell. Christopher was in a good mood so I assumed he had not yet spoken to his parents about the love he felt for Miss Jane, I also assumed that if he had told them then he would have immediately told me during one of our daily gatherings. Once Christopher had left the hotel, I carried the painting into my room, withdrew the cover from it, and studied it. I was content with what Miss Jane had produced and after I looked at it I recovered the picture with the white sheet and went to find a frame shop so that I could frame the picture.