CHAPTER ELEVEN
Domestic VIOLENCE
The serenity found soaking one's aching and battered body in a deliciously hot bath was doubly enhanced by the knowledge I was marinating in the bubbles of my own tub.
I propped my head against a tightly rolled towel, gazing eastward through the large windows of the master bath, awed by the streaks of golden yellow morning light filtering down on the bluish peaks of Maine. Immediately before me, a dense gray thunderhead peeled back like a lid from a can, allowing thin rays of sun to pluck their way up a hillside in rapid succession and warm the woods within. A pot of breakfast tea prepared by Mrs. Potsdam was a nectarial delight, served in the familiar green porcelain mug I enjoyed so much as a boy. I sipped the steeped brew, shifting my attention to the southwest where some one hundred fifty miles away, University stood in its solemn brick sturdiness and blossoming floral accoutrements.
How rewarding it was to study there. I received as good an education as any student anywhere. More importantly, I valued it. A time of personal prolificacy in a wonderful setting. What more could one ask?
"Sir?"
"Enter, Smudgely." The valet's rap upon the door shattered my scenic enchantment. Excepting our brief interaction during the delivery of tea, along with fresh scones which went untouched, I had yet to converse with my trusted manservant. "Please, take a seat."
"Kind of you, sir, but no. With your permission, I'll stand." He remained behind the wicker partition that was once, ironically, Uncle Wark's dressing room privacy screen. An awkward silence filled the room as if two penitents had arrived at a confessional booth simultaneously, each uncertain as to whom should receive absolution first.
"I was just ruminating on old Professor Meeyard, Smudgely," I began, "and my days at University, of all things."
"Gerald Meeyard, the noted entomologist, sir?"
"Precisely. Full of doom and gloom, never one to partake in the brighter side of life. Oh, how I used to fulminate about his lengthy tirades, complaining about this and that, predicting the worst in everyone and everything."
"He was, sir, absurdly cynical."
"You know what resonates with me? His reaction to my final article in the Daily Oxymoron."
"Sir, need I remind you, your attorneys successfully argued the material was not libelous? Further, it was determined Professor Meeyard did not even bother to read the student newspaper."
"Still, that day he stood atop the cantaloupe crate on the campus green and announced to passersby that I wouldn't amount to but a spur on a housefly's leg." I pursed my lips and shook my head. "I have forgiven a lot of offenses, Smudgely, but that one has always stuck on my wall."
The older man issued a long sigh. "A poorly configured insult on the professor's behalf. You must take solace in the fact most listeners envisioned a giant mutant bug, sir, wearing cowboy attire."
"His words ring in my ears this morning. I do feel like a failure, as significant as a hair on a fly's hind leg."
"Sir, you shouldn't --"
"I had Bridgework in Jamaica. I could have conked him on the squash and packaged him back to the U.S. Instead, I make an ill fitted foray to Machu Picchu --"
"Stunning bit of history there, sir."
"And then lose both Bridgework and the woman who trusted me while aboard a bedeviled ship in the Pacific."
"It sometimes does happen that way, sir, despite our best intentions."
"Now I'm expecting a digital storage device, no larger than your thumb, to arrive here today, Smudgely. In a sad statement about this entire affair, the object in question is equated on a fungible level with that of a human life."
"My word, sir, such an undesirable predicament to find oneself in. I trust arrangements are being made to bring proper order to the matter?"
"Again, Smudgely, I have been sadly outwitted by my antagonists. I can only wait for their word to instruct me on what next to do." I pushed a floating island of bubbles down to my waiting toes. "You are to notify me the minute Dawn the Fed Ex girl arrives, understood?"
"Sir." He cleared his throat. "Will that be all, sir?"
"Actually, there is another issue. A rather thorny one. In addition to Wayland Bridgework, I've bollixed another mission. This time on the domestic front."
"Sir?"
"How is Mia Kolpaux working out, Smudgely?"
"Just fine, sir," he replied exuberantly. "She has been nothing but topnotch."
"Will it be your recommendation we keep her on?"
"I'd have no reason to say otherwise, sir. She has performed all her duties quite satisfactorily." He labored to keep his voice on an even keel. "I dare say she jumped into the Duesenberg minutes after you phoned, sir, quite anxious to be waiting for you at the airport."
"So noted." I paused, deciding it best to have a clear understanding with my most valued employee, a lifelong presence at the Manor and my de facto mentor. "Smudgely?"
"Sir?"
"Did you both enjoy the wine?" I gazed in the direction of University once again.
"Sir?"
"You and Miss Kolpaux. The wine. At the picnic yesterday."
"Oh, indeed, we did. Very nice selection, sir, which shall be replaced during our next visit to Boston."
"There's no need for such a thing, Smudgely," I said, rising from the tub and facing the splendor of the southern mountain range au naturel. The course of nature was an unpredictable but nevertheless welcomed mistress and deserving of unconditional respect. Any attempt at obstruction, I learned in my short years, invariably met with miserable disappointment. "Consider it my gift to you both."
"Very kind, sir. Thank you."
"Indeed, Smudgely. Let the wine cellar be at your disposal for as long as necessary. True love isn't meant to be corked, shelved and left alone in the dark!"
"Well put, sir!"