Please believe there is nothing he could have said that would have given me greater pleasure. My wife and I always hoped that your future was in the hands of good people. Mark has repeated several times that you have no curiosity about your relations, to the extent that you do not wish even to know their names. Should your determination remain as strong, then throw this letter away now and do not read on.
I have always been fond of fables. When my children were small I used to read Aesop to them. They were particularly fond of stories about the Fox and the Lion, for reasons that will become obvious. I am reluctant to put too much information into this letter, for fear of giving you the impression that I care little for your strongly held feelings. To that end, I enclose a variation on an Aesop fable and two newspaper clippings. From what Mark tells me, you will certainly be able to read between the lines of all three and draw some accurate conclusions.
Suffice it to say that my wife and I failed dismally to achieve the same high standard of parenting with our two children as the Smiths achieved with you. It would be easy to lay the blame for this at the door of the army-the absence of a father figure whenever I was away on duty, foreign postings when neither parent was at home, the influences they fell under at boarding school, the lack of supervision during holidays at home-but that would be wrong, I think.
The fault lay with us. We overindulged them to compensate for our absences and interpreted their wild behavior as attention-seeking. We also took the view-shamefully, I fear-that the family name was worth something and rarely, if ever, did we ask them to face up to their mistakes. The greatest loss was you, Nancy. For the worst of reasons-snobbery-we helped our daughter find a "good husband" by keeping her pregnancy secret, and in the process gave away our only grandchild. If I were a religious man, I would say it was a punishment for setting so much store by family honor. We abandoned you rashly to protect our reputation without any understanding of your fine qualities or what the future might hold.
The irony of all this hit me very strongly when Mark told me how unimpressed you were by your Lockyer-Fox connection. In the end, a name is only a name and a family's worth resides in the sum of its parts not in the label they have chosen to attach to themselves. Had I come to this view earlier, I doubt I would be writing this letter. My children would have grown up to be stable members of society, and you would have been welcomed for who you were, not banished for what you were.
I will finish by saying that this is the only letter I shall write. If you don't reply or if you instruct a solicitor to sue, I shall accept that the gamble is lost. I have purposefully not explained my real reason for wanting to meet you, although you may suspect that your status as my only grandchild has something to do with it.
I believe Mark told you that you would be doing a great kindness by agreeing to see me. May I add that you would also be offering the hope of redress to someone who is dead.
Yours sincerely,
James Lockyer-Fox
The Lion, the Elderly Fox,
And the Generous Ass
The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass lived together in intimate friendship for several years until the Lion grew scornful of the Fox's age and derided the Ass for her generosity to strangers. He demanded the respect due his superior might, and insisted her generosity be shown only to him. The Ass, in great trepidation, assembled all her wealth into one large heap and offered it to the Fox for safekeeping until the Lion mended his ways. The Lion burst into a great rage and devoured the Ass. Then he requested the Fox do him the favor of making the division of the Ass's wealth. The elderly Fox, aware that he was no match for the Lion, pointed to the pile and invited the Lion to take it. The Lion, assuming the Fox had learned sense from the death of the Ass, said, "Who has taught you, my very excellent fellow, the art of division? You are perfect to a fraction." The Fox replied, "I learned the value of generosity from my friend, the Ass." Then he raised his voice and called upon the animals of the jungle to put the Lion to flight and share the Ass's fortune among themselves. "In this way," he told the Lion, "you will have nothing and the Ass will be avenged."
But the Lion devoured the Fox and took the Fox's fortune instead.
Lockyer-Fox-Ailsa Flora, unexpectedly at home on 6 March 2001, aged 78. Dearly loved wife of James, mother of Leo and Elizabeth, and generous friend to many. Funeral service at St. Peter's, Dorchester on Thursday 15 March at 12:30. No flowers please, but donations if desired to Dr. Barnardo's or the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
CORONER'S VERDICT
A coroner's inquest ruled yesterday that Ailsa Lockyer-Fox, 78, of Shenstead Manor died of natural causes despite an inconclusive postmortem and pathologist's report which failed to identify a reason for death. A police investigation was launched after bloodstains were found near the body and neighbors alleged an angry argument on the night of her death.
Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was discovered on the terrace of Shenstead Manor on the morning of 6 March by her husband. She was wearing nightclothes and had been dead for some time. Colonel Lockyer-Fox, who gave evidence at the inquest, said he believed she must have risen during the night to feed the foxes that were regular visitors to Shenstead Manor. "I can only assume she lost consciousness and died of cold." He denied that the French windows were locked on the inside when he came downstairs, or that Mrs. Lockyer-Fox was unable to regain entry to the house had she wished.
The coroner referred to one neighbor's claim that she heard a man and woman arguing shortly after midnight on 6 March. Colonel Lockyer-Fox denied that he and his wife were the people in question, and the coroner accepted his statement. He also accepted that bloodstains found on flagstones two meters from the body were animal and not human. In dismissing the speculation that has surrounded Ailsa Lockyer-Fox's death, he said: "Rumor in this case was entirely unfounded. I hope today's verdict will bring an end to it. For whatever reason, Mrs. Lockyer-Fox decided to go outside on a cold night, inadequately dressed, and tragically collapsed."
The daughter of a wealthy Scottish landowner, Ailsa Lockyer-Fox was well known for her campaigns against cruelty to animals. "She will be greatly missed," said a spokesman for the Dorset branch of the League Against Cruel Sports. "She believed that all life had value and should be treated with respect." She was also a generous benefactor of local and national children's homes and charities. Her personal estate, valued at £1.2m, passes to her husband.
Debbie Fowler
Kosovo
Tuesday, 6 November
Dear Colonel Lockyer-Fox,
Your letter was forwarded to me by my mother. I, too, have an interest in fabular culture. The bones of your fable are "The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass," one of whose morals could be described as: "Might makes Right." You could have applied a similar moral to your own tale: "The Might of Many makes Right," since the implication is that you are dismantling your wife's fortune in order to give it away to more deserving causes than your son-presumably children and animal charities. This seems to me a very sensible course, particularly if he was responsible for her death. I am not a great believer in leopards (or Lions) changing their spots, so I remain cynical that he will "mend his ways."
I am not entirely clear from the clipping re: the coroner's verdict who was the subject of the speculation following your wife's death, although I suspect it may have been you. However, if I have read your fable correctly then your son is Leo the Lion, your wife was Ailsa the Ass, and you are the Fox who witnessed her murder. So why didn't you inform the police of this instead of allowing speculation to grow? Or is this another case of hiding family "mistakes" under the carpet? Your strategy would seem to be that redress for your wife is best achieved by denying your son his inheritance, but isn't justice through the courts the only true redress? Whatever instability problems your son has will not be improved by allowing him to get away with murder.