Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ met him twice in the line of duty, no more.

      ‘He sent you to India on secret political work,’ says he, and now he was all business, no visionary nonsense. ‘He must think highly of you – and so he should. Afghanistan, Punjab, Central Asia, Jhansi … oh, yes, Flashman, news travels, and we diplomatics take more note of work in the intelligence line than we do of …’ He indicated my Cross, with a little smile. ‘I have no doubt that his lordship values your opinion more than that of many general officers. Much more.’ He was looking keen, and my innards froze, for I’d heard this kind of talk before. You ain’t getting me up yonder disguised as a Zulu, you bastard, thinks I, but his next words quieted my fears.

      ‘I am not persona grata at home, colonel. To be blunt, they think me a dangerous dreamer, and there is talk of my recall – you’ve heard it bruited in the town, I don’t doubt. Well, sir,’ and he raised his chin, eye to eye, ‘I hope I have convinced you that I must not be recalled, for the sake of our country’s service – and for the sake of Africa. Now, Lord Palmerston will not be out of office long, I believe.¹⁰ Will you do me the signal favour, when you reach home, of seeking him out and impressing on him the necessity – the imperative necessity – of my remaining here to do the work that only I can do?’

      I’ve had some astonishing requests in my time – from women, mostly – but this beat all. If he thought the unsought opinion of a lowly cavalry colonel, however supposedly heroic and versed in political ruffianing, would weigh a jot with Pam, he was in the wrong street altogether. Why, the thought of my buttonholing that paint-whiskered old fox with ‘Hold on, my lord, while I set you right about Africa’ was stuff for Punch. I said so, politely, and he fixed me with that steely gazelle eye and sighed.

      ‘I am well aware that a word from you may carry little weight – all I ask is that … little. His lordship has not inclined to accept my advice in the past, and I must use every means to persuade him now, do you not see?’ He stared hard at me, impatient; there was a bead of sweat on his brow – and suddenly it came to me that the man was desperate, ready to snatch at anything, even me. He was furious at having to plead with a mutton-headed soldier (he, Sir George Grey, who alone could save Africa!), but he was in that state where he’d have tried to come round Palmerston’s cook. He tried to smile, but it was a wry grimace on the pale, strained face. ‘Decisions, you know, are not always swayed by senators; a word from the slave in the conqueror’s chariot may turn the scale.’ Gad, he could pay a compliment, though. ‘Well, Colonel Flashman, may I count on you? Believe me, you will be doing a service to your country quite as great as any you may have done in the past.’

      I should have spat in his eye and told him I didn’t run errands for civil servants, but it’s not every day you’re toadied by a lofty proconsul, patronising jackanapes though he may be. So I accepted his hand-clasp, which was hard (but damp, I noted with amusement), marvelling at the spectacle of a proud man humbling himself for the sake of his pride, and ambition. All wasted, too, for they did recall him – and then Pam reinstated him, not at my prompting, you may be sure. But his great African dream came to nothing.

      That’s by the way, and if I’ve told you of Grey and Africa at some length, well, I’m bound to record these things, and it was a queer start altogether, and he was an odd bird – but the point is that if he hadn’t thought he could use me, he’d never have dined me that night, or shown me off to Cape society … and I’d never have heard of Harper’s Ferry.

      The last carriages had arrived while we talked, so now it was Flashy on parade in the hall before society assembled. Grey made me known from the Kat balcony, to polite applause, and led me down the little staircase to be admired and gushed over; there must have been thirty or forty under the chandeliers, and Grey steered me among them; I gave my bluff manly smile, with a click of the heels or an elegant inclination, depending on their sex, but when we came to a group by the piano, I thought, hollo, this is far enough.

      She was seated at the keyboard, playing the last bars of a waltz, tra-la-ing gaily and swaying her shoulders to the music; they were the colour of old ivory, flaunting themselves from a silvery-white dress which clung to her top hamper in desperation. She laughed as she struck the final flourish, and as those nearest patted their palms she bowed and turned swiftly on the stool, smiling boldly up at me and extending a slim gloved hand as though she had timed the action precisely to Grey’s introduction. I didn’t hear the name, being intent on taking stock: bright black eyes alight with mischief, that dark cream complexion (touch o’ the tar brush, I fancied), glossy black hair that swung behind her in a great fan – a shade too wide in the mouth for true beauty, and with heavy brows that almost met above a slim aquiline nose, but she was young and gay and full of sauce, and in that pale, staid assembly she was as exotic as an orchid in a bed of lettuce, with a shape to rival Montez as she sat erect, sweeping her skirt clear of the piano stool.

      ‘Oah, I should have played a march in your honour, Sir Harree – nott a waltz!’ cries she. Chi-chi, beyond doubt, with that shrill lilt to her voice, and mighty pert for a colonial miss. I said gallantly ’twas all one, since in her presence I was bound to look, not listen – and I knew from the way she fluttered her lids, smiling, and then raised them, wide and insolent, that we were two of a mind. Her hand tightened, too, when I pressed it, nor did she withdraw it as Grey made another introduction, and I saw she was glancing with amusement at the chap who’d been turning her music, whom I hadn’t noticed. ‘My father,’ says she, and as I faced him I realised with an icy shock where I’d seen her dark brows and arched nose before, for I was staring into the pale terrible eyes of John Charity Spring.

      It’s a shame those books on etiquette don’t have a chapter to cover encounters with murderous lunatics whom you’d hoped never to meet again. I could have used one then, and if you’ve met J. C. Spring, M.A., in my memoirs, you’ll know why. This was the mad villain who’d kidnapped me to the Slave Coast on his hell-ship in ’48 (on my own father-in-law’s orders, too), and perforce I’d run black ivory with him, and fled from she-devil Amazons, and been hunted the length of the Mississippi, and lied truth out of Louisiana to keep both our necks out of a noose.^fn1 The last time I’d seen him he’d been face down in a bowl of trifle in a New Orleans brothel, drugged senseless so that he could be hauled away and shanghaied – to Cape Town, bigod! Had he been here ever since – how long was it? Ten years almost, and here he was, brooding malevolently at me from those soulless eyes, while I gaped dumbstruck. The trim beard and hair were white now, but he was as burly as ever, the same homicidal pirate whom I’d loathed and dreaded; the weal on his forehead, which darkened whenever he was preparing to spill blood or talk about Oriel College, was glowing pink, and he spoke in the old familiar growl.

      ‘Colonel and sir, now, eh? You’ve risen in rank since I saw you last – and in distinction, too, it seems.’ He glowered at my medals. ‘Bravely earned, I daresay. Ha!’

      Grey wasn’t a diplomat for nothing. ‘You are acquainted?’ says he, and Spring bared his fangs in his notion of a smile.

      ‘Old shipmates, sir!’ barks he, glaring as though I were a focsle rat. ‘Reunited after many years, eh, Flashman? Aye, gratis superveniet quae non sperabitur hora!’^fn2 He wheeled on his daughter – Spring with a daughter, my God! – and I dropped her hand like a hot rivet. ‘My dear, will you not play your new Scarlatti piece for his excellency, while the Colonel and I renew old acquaintance – charming, sir, I assure you! Such delicacy of touch!’ And in an aside to me: ‘Outside, you!’

      He had my arm in a grip like a steel trap, and I knew better than to argue. Maniacs like Spring don’t stand on ceremony for mere governors – four quick strides and he had me on the verandah, and as he almost threw me down the steps to the shadowy garden my one thought was that he was going to set about me in one of his berserk rages – I could guess why, too, so I wrenched clear, babbling.

      ‘I’d СКАЧАТЬ