Writing for Fun
Monte Carlo - Joan Bond
September 2014
Jean Claud heard the horses returning and ran out to help Marianne jump from hers, she walked into the stables with him and they immediately fell into each other's arms.
They had been in love for months and Jean being only the stable man to the Baron was well out of her league for any future together.
He and his father before him had served at the house and he had been brought up to help the children to ride their ponies and the two of them had played together as children, their feeling of love always growing during the years.
Another suitor was staying at the chateau as her father was getting impatient for her to marry but she always backed down from this arrangement. The couple decided to elope and were on the morning of leaving when her father caught her trying to smuggle her clothes out during the night. The two confessed their love for each other and the Count had her sent to a convent as Jean was taken away. He found himself kidnapped and taken to an island where there was a prison. He had no name and was told he would see no one ever more. It was a very old dark bleak cell and he was very poorly treated in fact almost starved for months. He found a piece of metal and sharpened it into a tool to start digging into the cracks between the old brick walls but it was mostly rock He was there for god knows how long because there was no light to distinguish day from night only a thin bowl of gruel once a day.
He finally managed to dig out a slight crevice and heard a voice speaking. And talking himself, found there was another cell where he found a very old man in as bad a state as he. There was at least someone to talk to. The old man had been a jeweller of renown but had come up against a dastardly villain who tried to steal all his stock. He had killed him and ended up in this prison ten years ago. Jean kept on digging finally getting an entry into the old man's cell.
Jean helped as much as he could but mainly listened to the wrongs that had been dealt to Joseph who was becoming very weak. There came the day when Joseph knew he couldn't last any longer and he told Jean about a store of jewels he had secreted in a cave. He wanted Jean to have them if he ever became free. Two days later the old man died and the warder came, having him bagged up for disposal. They were on an island so the body would, in the dawn light, be thrown into the sea. During the night Jean carefully took the body of his friend into his cell covering it to look as though he was asleep, climbed back and screwed himself into the bag, ensuring he had his sharp tool to cut the bag as he was dumped into the water.
Jean had such a shock as he felt the cold of the water he hadn't even known if it was summer or not. He had scratched the days on the wall when he was first interred but not as the years went, but he had to cut himself clear quickly to swim as far from the place as he could. He was pretty weak but determined now to be free. As he was nearing the far coast, the sea was rough and he was at last thrown onto a rocky beach.
It was a long time before he had the strength to pull himself over the rocks and up the cliff. Not knowing what he would find as he climbed, he was excited but scared to see a couple of houses. They were old shacks used in the summer for the fishermen to shelter. One had a few clothes and blankets to dry and warm him and he just wrapped himself and fell asleep. Waking early he found some items of wood in the shed and a flint box to get a fire. A few pots enabled him to get hot water and cook some crabs he collected from the beach. He gave himself a few days to get a little more strength then started to make his way across to where the cave was situated.
On following the directions given by Joseph he found the steel box up on a ledge at the back of the cave still safe, and, as promised, it was full of gold coins and jewellery of every kind. His only ambition was to destroy the man who had ordered him to be incarcerated for all these years, so he made plans.
He bought an old chateau with land in which he inherited the title of Count becoming known as a man to be recognised as rich and generous. Knowing the baron who by this time gambled at the tables and was even a worse rogue, he invited him to his gambling parties using the services of a card sharp who won all the Baron's money and ruined the man, even taking his lands.
Suffice to say he used the money to find the convent where Marianne was also a prisoner and he made her his beautiful wife and lived happily ever after as the renowned Count of Monte Cristo. Oh gawd . . . I have done it again . . . wrong bloody Monte!