Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ wouldn’t do to draw back, so I sauntered down the stairs and Susie saw me just as she was dismissing them.

      ‘Wait, gels!’ she beamed and held out a hand to me. ‘You should know – this is your new master … or will be very soon. Make your curtsies to Mister Beauchamp Comber, gels – there, that’s elegant!’ As she passed her arm through mine I nodded offhand and said, ‘Ladies’ as twenty bonneted heads ducked in my direction, and twenty graceful figures bobbed – by George, I daren’t stare or I’d have started to drool. Every colour from ebony and coffee brown to cream and all but pure white – and every size and shape: tall and petite, statuesque and slender, lissom and plump, and all of ’em fit to illustrate the Arabian Nights. They fluttered out, whispering, and Susie squeezed my hand.

      ‘Ain’t they sweet, though? That’s our fortune, my love.’

      One of them lingered a moment, telling Brutus to mind how he carried her parrot’s cage ‘—for he does not like to be shaken, do you, my little pet-pigeon?’ She had a soft Creole accent, well-spoken, and just the way she posed, tapping the cage, and the little limp gesture she made to Brutus, told me that she was showing off for the new boss: she was a creamy high-yaller, all in snowy crinoline, with her bonnet far enough back to show an unusual coiffure, sleek black and parted in the centre; a face like a wayward saint, but with a slow, soft-footed walk to the door that spoke a rare conceit.

      ‘M’m,’ says Susie. ‘That’s Cleonie – if she ’adn’t turned back I’d ha’ thought she was sickenin’ for somethin’. I may ’ave to think about takin’ the cane to ’er – yet you can’t blame ’er for doin’ wot makes ’er valuable, can you? Know wot she can make for us in a year? – fifteen thousand dollars an’ more – an’ that’s workin’ ’er easy. Now then …’ She pecked me and winked. ‘Let’s be off – we don’t want to keep a very important gentleman waitin’, do we?’

      Who that gentleman was I discovered when we boarded the Choctaw Queen at the levee just as dusk was falling – for we’d agreed I must run no risk of being recognised, and that I’d keep out of public view in daylight until we reached Westport. Susie had bespoken the entire texas deck on the steamboat, which was one of the smaller stern-wheelers, and when we’d made our way through the bustling waterfront and its confusion of cargo and passengers milling under the flares (me with my collar well up and my hat pulled down), up the gangway past the saluting conductor, to the texas and its little private saloon – there in the sudden light of chandeliers was a table spread with crystal and silver, and nigger waiters in livery, and a band of fiddlers scraping away, and the big red-faced skipper himself, all consequence and whiskers, bowing over Susie’s hand and clasping mine heartily, while a little clergyman bustled up, solemnly asmirk, and a couple of sober coves behind looked wise and made play with pens and certificates.

      ‘Well, now, that’s just fine!’ cries the skipper. ‘Welcome ’board, Miz Willinck, ma’am, an’ you too, suh, kindly welcome! All ready, ma’am, as you see – Revn’d Hootkins, an’ heah Mistah Grace, the magistrate, an’ clerk an’ all!’ He waved a great hand, and I realised that the crafty bitch had brought me up to scratch all unawares – she was smiling at me, wide-eyed and eager, and the skipper was clapping my back, and the magistrate inquiring that I was Beauchamp Comber, bachelor of sound mind and good standing, wasn’t that so, while the clerk scribbled away and blotted the page in haste, and had to start again, and we both wrote our names, Susie’s hand shaking as she held the quill – and then we stood side by side while the little sky-pilot fumbled his book and cleared his throat and said shet the doah, there, an’ keep them fiddlers quiet, till we do this thing solemn an’ fittin’, now then … Susan Willinck, widder … an’ Bochump, how you say that? Bee-chum, that a fact? … we bein’ gathered in the sight o’ God an’ these heah witnesses … holy matrimony … procreation, yeah, well … long as ye both shall live … you got the ring, suh? … you hain’t? … lady has the ring, well, that’s a new one, but pass it over to him, anyhow, an’ you, suh, lay a-holt the bride’s hand, that’s it now …

      I heard the bells boom over Strackenz Cathedral, and smelt the musk of incense, and felt the weight of the crown jewels and Irma’s hand cold in mine … and then it was Elspeth’s warm and holding firm, with little Abercrombie watching that I didn’t make a bolt for the abbey door, and Morrison’s irritable mutter that if there wisnae suffeeshent carriages for the aunts and cousins they could dam’ weel walk tae the weddin’ breakfast … and I was at the peephole looking down on Ranavalona’s massive black nakedness while her handmaidens administered the ceremonial bath – not that there’d been any wedding ceremonial there, but it had been a ritual preliminary, in its way, to my union with that ghastly nigger monster … Irma’s face turning, icy and proud, her lips barely brushing my cheek … Elspeth glowingly lovely, golden curls under her bridal veil, red lips open under mine … that mad black female gorilla grunting as she flung off her robe and grabbed my essentials … I don’t know what conjured up these visions of my previous nuptials, really; I suppose I’m just a sentimental chap at bottom. And now it was Susie’s plump face upturned to mine, and the fiddlers were striking up while the skipper and magistrate applauded and cried congratulations, the nigger waiters passed the plates with mirthful beams, with corks popping and Susie squealing with laughter as the skipper gallantly claimed the privilege of kissing the bride, and the little clergyman said, well, just a touch o’ the rye, thank’ee, no, nothin’ with it, an’ keep it comin’ …

      But what I remember best is not that brief unexpected ceremony, or the obligatory ecstatic thrashings on the bed of our plushy-gilt state-room under the picture of Pan leering down appropriately while fleshy nymphs sported about him, or Susie’s imprisoning embrace as she murmured drowsily: ‘Mrs Comber … Mrs Beauchamp Millward Comber,’ over and over – none of these things. What I remember is slipping out when she was asleep, to stand by the breezy texas rail in the velvet dark and smoke a cheroot, looking out over the oily waters as we ploughed up past Baton Rouge. The great stern wheel was flickering like a magic lantern in the starshine; far over on the east shore were the town lights, and from the main saloon on the boiler deck beneath me came the sound of muffled music and laughter; I paced astern and looked down at the uncovered main deck – and that’s what I can see and hear now, clear across the years, as though it were last night.

      From rail to rail the great deck was packed with gear and people, all shadowy under the flares like one of those Dutch night paintings: here a couple of darkies crooning softly as they squatted in the scuppers, there a couple of drummers comparing carpetbags, yonder some rivermen lounging at the gangway and telling stretchers – but they were just the few. The many, and there were hundreds of them, were either groups of young men who gossiped eagerly and laughed a mite too loud, or obvious families – Ma wrapped in her shawl beside the children huddled in sleep among the bales and bundles and tied wagons; Pa sitting silent, deep in thought, or rummaging for the hundredth time through the family goods, or listening doubtfully near the groups of the noisy single men. Nothing out of the way – except for a strange, nervous excitement that rose from that crowded deck like an electric wave; even I sensed it, without understanding, for I didn’t know then that these ordinary folk were anything but – that they were the emigrants, the vanguard of that huge tide that would pour into the wilderness and make America, the fearful, hopeful, ignorant ones who were going to look for El Dorado and couldn’t for the life of them have told you why, exactly, except that Pa was restless and Jack and Jim were full of ginger. And Ma was tired – but they were all going to see the elephant.

      He was crowded two deep along the port rail, was Pa, soberly looking west as though trying to see across the thousands of miles to where he hoped they were going, wondering what it would be like, and why hadn’t he stayed in Pittsburgh? The single fellows had no such doubts (much); beneath me a bunch in slouch hats and jeans were passing the jug around boisterously, and one with a melodeon was striking up:

      Oh, say, have ye got a drink of rum?

      Doodah, СКАЧАТЬ