The Start of an as yet untitled story...

The wireless hummed in the corner of the breakfast room as I, in my thirties by then, brought fresh apple juice to his table. Plain oatmeal had been the staple breakfast for Jerry for nigh on twenty five years, but things had changed recently, and Jerry was going to make the most of it!

        “Will Sir be dining alone?” I enquired. Jerry nodded and I discreetly removed the second place setting with well practiced haste.

        “Hector,” he said knowingly.

“Please call me Hec,” I interrupted, I’d known him for ten years by that point and the formality seemed rather pointless.

“Hec, you couldn’t imagine how it feels to be here right now. Thank you,” he said as I set down his melon and Parma ham before him. It had been five years since Jerry had found his wife Doris in a romantic tryst with Henry, the butler and seemingly, he had only just recovered, but I knew better. At the time he had taken it hard and did not see anyone for a week. He had cried, in secret, weeping silently into his twenty five year old single malt behind closed doors, not venturing out of his suite. Of course gossip spread like wildfire, particularly after he gave them his blessing to be together. As though he was their father. The fishwives, particularly those who had pursued him and been rejected by him loved this. It served him right for what he put all the girls through when he was a young boy, fresh out of college.

“He took me out on a date, gave me flowers, took me to a movie and made a whole big deal of taking me to my door and insisting on meeting my father! He stole a kiss and was a perfect gentleman. The next day he was out with that COW Doris!” It was true that Doris was not the prettiest, nor the most feminine girl, but he had a secret which wouldn’t go away and he chose her because of her implicit trust and discretion. He knew she would never ask any questions, nor force his hand in any way. More than that, he knew she couldn’t have children. While she worked for him, they would talk and one day, over a scotch after hours, she poured out her heart about the terrible condition which had left her barren. She had feared she would never marry, seeing that she could never produce an heir. He had never bothered about continuing the family line. That night they sealed their affection with a kiss and within the week they were courting. Their relationship was as good as any other, they were affectionate with one another both emotionally and physically. The move from housekeeper to Lady of Leisure was an easy one and she never tired of ordering around the maid she had once been, sitting writing her correspondence and eating bon bons in the sitting room with the wireless on and their miniature daschund at her feet. He would send her out shopping for the finest Coco Chanel gowns and hats by Lily Dache and twice a year would put her on the train to New York to see Muriel King’s Spring and Fall lines in her East Sixty First Street Salon. She wanted for nothing.

The history of one Jeremy David Dawson, named for his father and grandfather, is not a happy one, and I know it better than most. His father had been killed in combat in the Great War, and his mother had lost her mind upon learning that her darling Jerry would never return and poor little Jerry Junior had been left in a series of Orphanages, dreaming that one day he would see them again. This fantasy lasted until his eighteenth birthday, when his mother died, and the last will and testament of Mavis Sanders was read. There was a large estate which had remained nearly untouched since his father’s death, and Jerry Junior could go to college. This was his second stroke of luck. He did not even attend his mother’s funeral and changed his name to avoid the slur of madness which ran through his family. Studying at Stanford, thanks to a kind word from his mentor, the great and good Bob Titan of the prestigious Titan Hotel and casino chain, he majored in Business Management, graduating at the top of his class. But I’m getting ahead of myself.