Chapter 6 – Mrs Jeffrey

When we got to the room the porter put our bags on the shelf and Griff gave him a tip as he left, saying “Enjoy your stay.” I looked at Griff and said “Griff, just so you know. I have been using the biggest dilator in the pack for some weeks now. If you want to make love to me tonight I wouldn’t mind finding out what all the romantic novels were on about.”

His face was a sight to see as he took that in. He then came to me and wrapped me in his arms and kissed me. I have to say that it was a very new experience for me but, after some seconds, I was caught up in the kiss and I put my arms around his neck. When we broke the lip-lock I whispered in his ear “I know you like me, Griff, so now we are husband and wife I expect you to take me to bed, right now!”

We helped each other undress and I saw his magnificent penis, proudly erect and it was all for me. Naked we pulled the bed covers back and he kissed me all over and licked my new pussy until I was eager for something else. I had no idea just how it would all work but I need not have worried. My new plumbing worked exactly how the doctors said it would and the feeling of him deep in me sent me into another plane of existence. I think that we must have been a bit noisy because several of the staff gave me a big smile the next morning at breakfast.

After breakfast we went out into the city and flagged a cab to go to an address that Griff gave the driver. Once the cab had left us he took my hand and we walked quite a way until we arrived at a line of lock-ups. At one Griff felt around above the door and found a key sitting in the sheet metal bend. He opened the lock-up and inside was an older model Mercedes. He got in and started it, warming it before carefully backing it out. He opened the boot and there were a couple of cases and he said “These are totally new outfits for both of us to add to our grab-bag wardrobes. You and I, my darling, are going on an extended honeymoon and, if last night was a sample, we are going to enjoy it immensely.”

He closed the lock-up and put the key back where he had found it and then we were in the car and driving back to the hotel. There we repacked our bags and checked out, all smiles and hugs for everyone. With the car loaded we only went as far as a café where we parked and went in for a snack. Sitting at a quiet table we chatted about where we were going to and he told me that the final destination was going to be a surprise but we will be taking a few weeks getting there, as long as Merilyn allowed us to keep on the road.

Back in the car we headed north-west until we stopped at a small pub outside of Tenbury Wells. On the way he explained that the Range Rover would be stopping at a number of services going north so that anyone who twigged that we had escaped in it would be looking in that direction. We would take our time going up to northern Wales and then working down the coast as happy honeymooners. I said that I was really looking forward to that, as long as Merilyn didn’t mind.

After a light lunch we picked up the A49 and went north until we reached Shrewsbury and we stopped at a nice hotel where we asked if there was a room and we were checked in as Mister and Mrs Jeffrey. We stayed there for four days, resting up after the sudden upheaval. We read the newspapers and watched TV, went for walks and took in the town sights. The news from the Forest of Dean was that an unruly mob had invaded the house of a prominent politician and had done a fair bit of damage before leaving but no-one was injured except for a couple who had been burnt by their own flaming torches. There was no word about Gwen and the team but it was reported that the politician had escaped in his helicopter.

I would like to say that it was here that I fell in love with Griff but I am sorry to say that I just loved his attentions and what we got up to in bed. What I did realise was that I loved the power that being loved gave me and I also loved the power I had over him without him knowing it. I could now sense what drove Gwen to having an affair with Lance and, oddly, what would have driven Guinevere to have bedded Lancelot. I knew that as soon as a better qualified man came along with regard to my survival, I would drop Griff like a stone.

I bought a copy of Malorys’ book on Arthur and read it through before putting it in a rubbish bin. I then left Griff for a couple of hours and spent the time in the Library searching through their books on the Arthurian legend. As Shrewsbury was the central town of the old area in medieval days and the biggest town in Powys when it was much bigger than it is today. The library had a lot of information about the different legends and songs from the early days but none really helped me except for references in the Mabinogion where Arthur was described as a solid person with wealth and power in one of the stories. For more, I thought, I would have to wait until we went south again.

From Shrewsbury we booked some time in Llangollen and then we hooked south again to Dolgellau. We then went down to Aberystwyth where we stayed in a hotel for a few nights while we found, and rented, a small furnished house on the outskirts of the town. Here we set up camp and I registered with the local GP as Mrs Morgan Jeffrey. I spent my days in the National Library of Wales while Griff took the car and went to see how Gwen and the team were, telling me that he would not divulge my position to them.

In the library I tracked through various tomes that contained old Welsh history and discovered that the name I had taken had much more meaning than I had thought. The old writings spoke about Morgan Le Fay – the Fairy – as a great magical figure; an apprentice to Merlin and a very powerful sorceress in her own right. The kicker was that it was thought that she was the daughter to a chap named Gorlois and a woman called Igraine. When Gorlois was killed in battle Igraine married Uther Pendragon and they had Arthur. Morgan was about four when Arthur was born and here the tales get a little foggy. Some said that Arthur and his half-sister Morgan married and they had a son called Mordred, who finally was the one who played a pivotal role in the end of Arthurs reign. Morgan disappeared from the narrative for a while and Arthur married Guinevere.

It was all very interesting but my life was being taken over by my baby. As I got closer to term I became more house-bound and Griff needed to stay close. He was still working for Sir Lionel but he would not let them know of my whereabouts, seeing that it was Lionels’ stupidity that nearly got us all killed. When he got back from one trip he had a different car, a Volvo Estate which would be perfect for a couple and child whenever we moved on.

Merilyn was born in the hospital at Aberystwyth and I can say that it was not the easiest of births but she did come into the world naturally and I survived; much in the way that someone from a war zone survives. Now I knew why women didn’t speak about childbirth very much and I wondered why you would put yourself through that a second or third time. By that time I was lactating so was able to feed her naturally,

Of course, the papers were full of speculation about new-borns around this time but they were still looking for a man about to have a C-section so an obvious woman who had a healthy daughter naturally did not make it into the lists of possibles. Some unfortunate women with masculine looks did get closely interviewed. I think my doctors were so enchanted by my little one they refused to think that this was the messiah or even the devil in disguise. With her chubby cheeks, blonde hair, beaming smile and deep green eyes she was loved and cuddled wherever she went. Every time I looked into those eyes, however, I couldn’t help but wonder where I had seen them before.

We stayed in the house for another year with Griff going off to do his work on the side and also make it look like he was alone. We lived as man and wife whenever he was home but I was now taking precautions and learning to live with periods. I knew that he was worried about his latest assignment when he kissed us both and gave me an envelope which he told me to only open if he did not return. It was, sadly, a correct prediction as I read in the paper that three government agents had been killed in a gun battle with ultra-extremist Anti-Arthurians. The paper gave me an interesting fact that I had not known. It said that the titular leader of the AA faction was a politician called Vincent Melehan.

Now, in the research I had done I had found out that according to legend Mordred had conceived two sons, one of them called Melehan and it was he who killed Sir Lionel of the Round Table. Supposedly both sons had been murdered but it is likely that they had produced offspring before their deaths. It was all pretty tenuous but there were compelling facts that caused me sleepless nights and sometimes these were not just getting up to look after my baby. Merilyn was now into some walking and she had an uncommon desire to look at books. Surely she couldn’t be reading at her age.

When Griff did not come home I opened the envelope. It gave me the address, deeds and keys to a house in Camelford, purchased recently for cash in the name of Morgan Jeffrey. There was a note that said that ‘If you are reading this, etc., etc. and expressing just how much he loved me and had enjoyed our time together. That went in the fire along with most of the paperwork that he had left behind. In this house, Griff no longer existed.

Now Camelford was a very interesting place to be. Not far from Tintagel or Bodmin Moor, it is a sleepy little place and, if I lived there with Merilyn it would be living in full view. I think that this was his plan, to be so overt as to be invisible as ‘the most dangerous person in the country’. It was right in the centre of Arthurian history and there was even a museum devoted to the legend in Slaughterford. There would be schools in Wadebridge or Launceston where I could take Merilyn. It was, I thought, a brilliant place to be as Merilyn grew up and would also allow me to further my research. I must say that Merilyn was a very happy child, very few grizzles and always smiling. I talked to her often and she started to construct understandable speech well before she was two.

Over the next month I disposed of Griffs’ things and cleaned out anything of mine I didn’t want any more. I took Merilyn down to Camelford and we looked at the house together. It was a lovely stone cottage with a nice garden, going a bit to weed. While I was there I heard a knock on the door and it was one of my neighbours being nosey. I told her that I had bought the place as a haven for me and my daughter, using proceeds of a payout on the death of my serviceman husband. She was rightfully concerned and was captured by my cute little one as soon as their eyes met. I told her that I would be moving in over a period of time as I had to settle the rent on where we had lived together and she assured me that she would arrange for my garden to be looked after. Before I left I had bought in two new double beds, a single for Merilyn and a dining set and sofas from a shop in Waterford and thoroughly cleaned the place.

That was the first of several trips as we made the place a home and brought our excess stuff down in the Volvo. At last I had loaded the car with our final load, Merilyn was in the booster seat and the house had been inspected. With the agents’ cheque for our bond in my bag I headed south again for the last time. It was odd to be in Cornwall and so close to the heart of the legend but it did seem right. Merilyn and I became accepted as part of the village and I became a sort of financial advisor to the older villagers with my accountancy and insurance knowledge.

It was one evening, about two years in the village, when I was trying to work out the tax liabilities of the local shop when I asked Merilyn, who was watching me closely, to move so I could have a little light. Suddenly, there was a small, glowing globe above my head and I could see the books easily. My brain was suddenly swirling with pictures and memories of someone I did not know but when the roundabout of visions stopped I looked at Merilyn and she gazed at me. I was not sure what had happened but I knew, deep within me, that it had changed my world.

Marianne G © 2021