Born in 1865, Doctor James MacNeil dedicated the majority of his life to his wife Eloise, and to the advancement of mental health. Never satisfied with the idea of settling into a practice and living out an eternity of one-hour appointments, James preferred consulting with various mental health facilities researching England’s most disturbed patients in an attempt to determine the limits of the human psyche. At the age of thirty-five, pressured by family and society, James married Eloise Parker, a tragically plain looking twenty-seven year old woman whose family was in financial ruin. Although he did not love her, he enjoyed her company and made certain that she enjoyed a life of comfort.
In 1910, Eloise began to suffer from spells of exhaustion and confusion that slowly descended into bedridden dementia. She eventually passed away in the summer of 1913 leaving their fourteen-year old son Timmothy to be raised by the kind staff at the best boarding school that money could buy. James retired a few years early and spent the next 6 years isolated in his country estate.
In the summer of 1919, he met Tom Keene, a twenty-six-year-old, not-so-handy, handyman. Tom had returned from The War and was in desperate need for work, so James hired him to paint his home. Enjoying Tom’s company he continued to employ him with various home repairs that had been neglected over the years. The two became especially close friends and Tom eventually moved into the estate under the guise of becoming James’ live-in aid. Now the two of them travel throughout Europe avoiding the judgment of the local community while investigating the secrets of the occult as members of the Cabalistic Order of the Crescent Moon.
While in London, James prefers to stay the Hotel Russell
