Brawny Bloke

“What if my daughter had lived? Rachel—would she have looked like Jay’s daughters? She died because of me.”

Lord Jim Fausscyn. Spare to the heir. Unprovided for. Must make his own way. Naval career first. Then His Majesty’s foreign service. Luckily, he’d won the pulchritudinous Rana, whose huge endowment of South African investments would keep them afloat. She’d also the rectitude of six Caesar’s wives! Although the bloody-mindedness of a child age nine. Childish nightmares too, hadn’t she once mentioned?

Yes, they’d married, she warning him beforehand that adultery wouldn’t be tolerated. She’d meant it, her first husband having been a notorious womanizer. Her second husband should’ve been faithful if not to find himself in punishing pain. Now bloke in a choke hold, brawny bloke down for the count. His noble Pa threatened to disown him. She herself threatened to leave him unless he shaped up pronto! Career in ruins too. Would he lose everything? Lose his sons? Chap on his knees. Chap driven to prayer though he’d not trusted to prayer since boyhood.

Family man pressing on—chastened chappie will muddle through. Rana struggles too. She and Jim hardly mesh; it’s jarring, even hilarious! Seriously though, why’s she so phobic? And what really happened to Rachel’s mum? Lost her mind, losing her baby? Occasionally even Rana weeps, wondering.

This story, taking place in the midtwentieth century, is both serious and humorous. Foibles, idiosyncrasies, the utterly unexpected of silliness, irony upon irony, from intimate disaster to spiritual redemption. There’s a mystery of deceit and lies, or well-meant misdirection. Crucial names get changed—so who’s who? The younger generation is protected till truth must out. Forgiveness remains the issue.