So, Mary and I found ourselves in that familiar predicament of most newlyweds: cast out of our old positions and in need of finding a new home for ourselves. Happily, this presented no difficulty. Mary had, after all, been the recipient of some portion of the Agra treasure courtesy of Thaddeus Sholto. Over the years, he’d given her six pearls of such extraordinary quality and size as to make them worthy of inclusion amongst the Crown Jewels.
I convinced her to part with one.
The sale commanded headlines the world over, as did the joy of the new owners—the Russian royal family. Czar Romanoff immediately handed the pearl over to his family jeweler, Karl Gustavovich Fabergé, to see if he could make anything special with it. Though middlemen and go-betweens made off with a good portion of the funds, Mary and I found ourselves with more money than anybody could ever really need in a single lifetime.
We bought a home in Bayswater Road, just across from Kensington Gardens. It was of quite preposterous size for only two people. As Mary began setting up house, I rejoined the career I had striven so hard to obtain. Though some time had passed since I’d practiced medicine in any official capacity, I was instantly successful. This, I must admit, had less to do with my skill and more to do with the fact that I didn’t really need any more money again, ever. If my patients were well-to-do, I certainly charged them. But I did not dedicate myself to milking every last cent of the family fortune the way most doctors did. And if my patients were destitute, I tended to make up excuses. True, this life-saving bottle of medicine might cost one third of the yearly income of that woman who did not wish to see her child waste away and perish, but… well, you know… it was about to expire, after all. I really needed it out of my bag, didn’t I? And under such conditions, why, it would be somewhat unconscionable to charge for it. No, no. I was only glad to be rid of the stuff. My bills tended to be issued late and with no great sense of urgency. No attempt at collection was ever made. Often, I tended to forget to present a bill at all. My successful medical career was costing us hundreds.
Mary didn’t care. Oh, she belittled me for it sometimes, but I think the main point of my practice—in both our minds—was that Mary be wed to a man with some form of reputation. Besides, if I didn’t have something to occupy my time, we should have nothing else to do but sit around all day, staring at each other with resentment and desire. I was glad to be out of the house. Though, I did have frequent compulsions to return to her. Sometimes—no matter how sick my patient, no matter how pressing their danger—I would be stricken with the overwhelming urge to just finish up and hurry back to the side of my tormentor. I could feel at ease nowhere else.
As I began re-teaching myself the forgotten particulars of modern medicine, Mary got up to an altogether different form of mischief. On only our second day in our Bayswater house, she sidled up beside me with a wicked smile and said, “Oh, John! Good news: I’ve bought a butler.”
“Hmm. Hired is what I hope you mean.”
“Oh, details, details,” Mary scoffed. “But now, don’t you wish to meet him?”
“Absolutely.”
Two more clicks of cruelty insinuated themselves into her smile. (I say “clicks” only because I do not know the proper unit of measurement for cruelty. Weight is ounces, distance is inches, but what is cruelty? It’s the sort of question that arose more often than you might think, in the company of Mary Watson.)
“Joachim, come here,” she said.
“Yeth! Abtholutely!” said a rich, husky voice from the corridor. A moment later a trim Spanish Adonis in rather tight trousers leapt in after it. He had that luxurious Madrid lisp, which I am told King Ferdinand made popular some years before. Yet, the confidence of his bearing, the spark in his eye, and the tightness of his legwear gave one to understand that he was actually much more impressive than any boring old king.
“Young Joachim is looking for a change in careers,” Mary informed me. “Formerly, he was a dancer.”
“Yes,” I said. “Clearly.”
“I will do my betht to pleathe you!” he announced. “Let me know if there ith anything you wish for, John!”
“I suppose I wish for you not to call me John.” Turning to Mary, I asked, “Has he any training at all?”
“Oh hush, John! He’s perfect!”
“Well yes, physically, but…”
“I said hush!”
Three days later, we got our German. Oh! I mean our gardener. Gunter was his name and he was roughly as broad across the shoulders as a yak turned sideways. No matter how much money I set aside for the purpose, we never seemed to own enough shirt to cover him fully. He did a good job maintaining the lawn and grounds, but his chief duty seemed to be standing about in front of the sitting-room windows, lifting heavy bags of seed in a particularly rippling manner with his blond hair flowing in the breeze.
Now, most fellows who spend their days away from the house might be forgiven for feeling some misgivings about their wives’ motives in hiring such manner of help. But I was not among
