Redemption - Leon Uris [94]
As long as we’re talking about books, I think I am ready to go past Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson, as adventurous as they are. Maybe I’m ready to have a go at Dickens.
I get so knotted up. If only the Squire and me could talk things through. I don’t read for the purpose of getting him mad. Anyhow, I store up the utter frustration and sometimes fight with kids I’m not even angry at. Mostly I go after big guys using my increasing left-handed skills. I guess I’ve got a bad reputation. It seems like only after I’ve had a fight can I calm down and then the station helps me to be quiet.
Someday, the Squire and I are going to really talk things over, calm-like. Other than that, life is fine, now, just fine.
Love,
Rory
How Rory longed to write what he could not.
Uncle Conor, I hurt to see you again. How I envy Lord Jeremy Hubble. Mind you, I hold him no jealous thoughts. I mean, what a life traveling with you as his tutor and rugby coach. In a manner of speaking, I’m glad you have a young fellow on your hands so you’ll never forget me.
And Jaysus, Uncle Conor, all those “coincidences” you write about. Sounds like you’re living a great adventure.
34
Secret Files of Winston Churchill
By the time I renounced the Conservative Party I had come to loathe—no, hate men, methods, words, and deeds. These Tories, methinks, are a confederation of corrupted men using aggression abroad in the form of cheap labor for the English millionaire. Although born into this class, and with boundless admiration for my late father, I cannot and will not continue as an upper-class toad.
Within the year, we Liberals under Campbell-Bannerman had swept into Parliament and I accepted my first sub-cabinet post as Under Secretary for the Colonies.
Rumors of my engagement to the daughter of South African Prime Minister Louis Both were highly exaggerated. True feelings for the lady were nonexistent.
It was incumbent upon me to find a new constituency to remain in Parliament, and I chose Manchester, which I won rather handily.
During my election campaign I had occasion to be guest of that rather gruff bully Ulsterman, Sir Frederick Weed, who was carting his rugby team about the Midlands. Despite his severe Unionist politics I rather liked this chap and suspected we would be doing business in the future. We recalled our earlier meeting in Hubble Manor, Londonderry, when I was a boy and my father played his now famous “Orange card.”
The purpose of my rambling here was that his Boilermaker brutes went on to take our coveted Admiral’ack to Ireland, but not before dismantling a brothel in Bradford along the way. Weed’s grandson, the Viscount Coleraine, created an enormous and affectionate reputation for his role in the melee. If we had more of the stripe of Weed and Lord Jeremy Hubble, their class would certainly be more palatable. The son-in-law, the Earl of Foyle, Roger Hubble, represents all I abhor.
In my new office I have traveled considerably to the colonies and am rather pleased with the friendship I have developed with my private secretary, Eddie Marsh.
On the other hand I have earmarked for political extinction Sir Frederick Hopwood, whose communication to my boss, Colonial Secretary Lord Elgin, reached my eyes. Among other dastardly remarks he says, “He (meaning me) is most tiresome to deal with and I fear may give trouble—as his father did—in any position to which he may be called. The restless energy, uncontrollable desire for notoriety, and lack of moral perception made him an anxiety, indeed!”
Indeed, indeed! We shall see.
Winston Churchill
Oh, yes, that Ulster-Bradford rugby game was best remembered by my sitting next to Countess Hubble who, somehow, has managed to remain lovely despite her dreary husband. Her scent on that day was divine. WSC
35
Rory O’Rory!
How best to tell you this, now? I have found the other half of my half-lived life. She is not what I expected. She sings off-key, which is an insult to my finely tuned sense of melody, she is definitely not redheaded enough, and