The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ but the thought that you might have been untrue … as he suggested – ah, that would have broken my heart! Tell me it wasn’t so, my love!”

      “Course it wasn’t! Good l--d, that raddled pudding Lade! How could you think it? I despise the woman – and as though I could even look at her, or any other, when I have my own perfect, angelic, Aphrodite—” I tried a couple of cautious thrusts as I saw the suspicion dying in her eyes, but since attack’s the best form of defence I suddenly stopped, frowning thunderously. “That foul kite Solomon! He will stoop to any depth. Oh, dearest, I have been mad these past weeks – the thought of you in his clutches.” I gulped in manly torment. “Tell me – in your ordeal – did he … I mean – well … did he, the scoundrel?”

      She was flushed with my attentions anyway, but at this she went crimson, and moaned softly, those innocent eyes brimming with tears.

      “Oh, how can you ask? Would I be alive now, if … if … Oh, Harry, I cannot believe it is you, holding me safe! Oh, my love!”

      Well, that was that settled (so far as it ever is with Elspeth; I’ve never been able to read those child-like eyes and butter-melting lips, so the d---l with it), and Mrs Lade disposed of, at least until we had finished the business in hand and were lying talking in the growing dusk of the cabin. Naturally, Elspeth’s story came flooding out in an excited stream, and I was listening with my mind in a great confusion, what with my weakened state, the crazy shock of our reunion, and the anxiety of our predicament – and suddenly, in the middle of describing the rations they’d fed her during her captivity, she suddenly said:

      “Harry – you are sure you have not been astride Mrs Lade?”

      I was so amazed she had to say it twice.

      “Eh? Good G-d, girl, what d’you mean?”

      “Have you mounted her?”

      I can’t think how I’ve kept my sanity, talking to that woman for sixty years. Of course, at this time we’d only been married for five, and I hadn’t plumbed the depths of her eccentricity. I could only gargle and exclaim:

      “D----t, I’ve told you I haven’t! And where on earth – it is shocking to use expressions of that kind!”

      “Why? You use them – I heard you, at Lady Chalmers’, when you were talking to Jack Speedicut, and you were both remarking on Lottie Cavendish, and whatever her husband could see in such a foolish creature, and you said you expected he found her a good mount. I dare say I was not meant to hear.”

      “I should think not! And I can have said no such thing – and anyway, ladies ain’t meant to understand such … such vulgar words.”

      “The ladies who get mounted must understand them.”

      “They ain’t ladies!”

      “Why not? Lottie Cavendish is. So am I, and you have mounted me – lots of times.” She sighed, and nestled close, G-d help us.

      “Well, I have not … done any such thing with Mrs Lade, so there.”

      “I’m so glad,” says she, and promptly fell asleep.

      Now, I’ve told you this, partly because it’s all of the conversation that I remember of that reunion, and also to let you understand what a truly impossible scatterhead Elspeth was – and still is. There’s something missing there; always has been, and it makes her senselessly unpredictable. (Heaven knows what idiocy she’ll come out with on her deathbed, but I’ll lay drunkard’s odds it’s nothing to do with dying. I only hope I ain’t still above ground to hear it, though.) She’d been through an ordeal that would have driven most women out of their wits – not that she had many to start with – but now she was back with me, safe as she supposed, she seemed to have no notion of the peril in which we both stood; why, when Solomon’s Malays took her away to her own quarters that first night, she was more concerned about the sunburn she’d taken, and if it would spoil her complexion, than about the fate Solomon might have in store for us. What can you do with a woman like that?

      Mind you, there was a dead weight off my heart at having seen her, and knowing she’d come to no bodily harm. At least her captivity hadn’t changed her – come to think of it, if she’d wept and raved about her sufferings, or sat numb and shocked, or been terrified of her situation, like a normal woman – she wouldn’t have been Elspeth, and that would have been worse than anything, somehow.

      For the next two days I was confined to my cabin, and didn’t see a living soul except the Chink steward who brought my food, and he was deaf to all my demands and questions. I’d no notion what was happening, or where we were going; I knew from what Solomon had said that we were in the South Indian Ocean, and the sun confirmed that we were westering steadily, but that was all. What did Solomon intend? – the one thing that grew on me was that he wasn’t likely to do me in, praise God, not now that Elspeth had seen me, for that would have scuppered any hopes he had of winning her. And that was the nub of it.

      You see, lunatic though his behaviour had been, the more I thought about it the more I believed him: the blighter was really mad about her, and not just to board and scuttle her, either, but with all the pure, romantic trimmings, like Shelley or one of those chaps. Astonishing – well, I love her myself, always have, but not to put me off my food.

      But Solomon had it to the point of obsession, where he’d been willing to kidnap and kill and give up civilization for her. And he’d believed that, in spite of his behaving like a b----y Barbary corsair, he could eventually woo and win her, given time. But then he’d seen her run to my arms, sobbing, and had realized it was no go; shocking blow it must have been. He’d probably been gnawing his futile passion ever since, realizing that he’d bought outlawry and the gallows for nothing. But what was he to do now? Unless he chopped us both (which seemed far-fetched, pirate and Old Etonian though he was) it seemed to me he had no choice but to set us free with apologies, and sail away, grief-stricken, to join the Foreign Legion, or become a monk, or an American citizen. Why, he’d as good as thrown up the sponge in letting Elspeth and me spend hours together alone; he’d never have done that if he hadn’t given up all hope of her, surely?

      He was in no hurry to repeat his generosity, however. On the third day a little Chink doctor visited me with the steward, but he didn’t have a word of English, and busied himself impassively examining the sumpitan-wound in my guts – which was fairly healed, and barely ached – while remaining deaf to my demands to see Solomon. In the end I lost patience, and made for the door, roaring for attention, but at this two of the Malay crew appeared, all bulging muscles and evil phizzes, and indicated that if I didn’t hold my tongue they’d hold it for me. So I did, until they’d gone, and then I set about the door with my boots, bawling for Elspeth, and calling Solomon every name I could think of – indulging my natural insolence, if you like, since I figured it was safe enough. By George, wasn’t I young and innocent, though?

      The response to that was nil, and an icy finger of fear traced down my back. For the past two days, with my belly still in a sling, it had seemed natural enough to be in the cabin – but now that the doctor had been, and seemed satisfied, why weren’t they letting me out – of why, at least, wasn’t Solomon coming to see me? Why weren’t they letting me see Elspeth? Why weren’t they letting me take exercise? It didn’t make sense, to keep me cooped here, if he was going to let us go, and – if he was going to let us go. It suddenly rushed in on me that that was pure assumption, probably brought on by my blissful reunion with Elspeth, which had been paradise after the weeks of peril and terror. Suppose I was wrong?

      I don’t know anyone who СКАЧАТЬ