Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald

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      ‘Shut your trap or I’ll shut it forever!’ he hissed. ‘Now then – what house is that, and why were you creeping to it? Quick – and keep your voice down!’

      He needn’t have fretted; the shock of that awful moment had almost carried me off, and for a spell I couldn’t find my voice at all. He shook me, growling, while I absorbed the dreadful realisation that he must have been dogging me all the way – first in my headlong flight, then on the streets, unseen. It was horrifying, the thought of that maniac prowling and watching my every move, but not as horrifying as his presence now, those pale eyes glaring round as he scanned the house and garden. And knowing him, I answered to the point, in a hoarse croak.

      ‘It … it belongs to a friend … of mine. A … an Englishwoman. But I don’t know … if she’s there now.’

      ‘Then we’ll find out,’ says he. ‘Is she safe?’

      ‘I … I don’t know. She … she took me in once before …’

      ‘What is she – a whore?’

      ‘No … yes … she owns the place – or did.’

      ‘A bawd, eh?’ says he, and bared his teeth. ‘Trust you to make for a brothel. Plura faciunt homines e consuetudine, quam e ratione,^fn1 you dirty little rip. Now then, see here. Thanks to you, I’m in a plight; can I lie up in that ken for a spell? And I’m asking your opinion, not your bloody permission.’

      My answer was true enough. ‘I don’t know. Christ, you killed a man back there – she may … may not …’

      ‘Self-defence!’ snarls he. ‘But we agree, a New Orleans jury may take a less enlightened view. Now then – this strumpet … she’s English, you say. Good-natured? Tolerant? A woman of sense?’

      ‘Why … why, yes … she’s a decent sort …’ I sought for words to describe Susie. ‘She’s a Cockney … a common woman, but—’

      ‘She must be, if she took you in,’ says this charmer. ‘And we have no course but to try. Now then,’ and he tightened his grip until I thought my neck would break, ‘see here. If I go under, you go under with me, d’ye see? So this bitch had better harbour us, for if she doesn’t …’ He shook me, growling like a mastiff. ‘So you’d better persuade her. And mind what Seneca says: Qui timide rogat, docet negare.’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘Jesus, did Arnold teach you nothing? Who asks in fear is asking for a refusal. Right – march!’

      I remember thinking as I tapped on the front door, with him at my elbow, brushing his hat on his sleeve: how many poor devils have ever had a mad murderer teaching ’em Latin in the environs of a leaping-academy in the middle of the night – and why me, of all men? Then the door opened, and an ancient nigger porter stuck his head out, and I asked for the lady of the house.

      ‘Miz Willinck, suh? Ah sorry, suh. Miz Willinck goin’ ’way.’

      ‘She isn’t here?’

      ‘Oh no, suh – she here – but she goin’ ’way pooty soon. Our ’stablishment, suh, is closed, pummanent. But if you goin’ next doah, to Miz Rivers, she be ’commodatin’ you gennamen—’

      Spring elbowed me aside. ‘Go and tell your mistress that two English gentlemen wish to see her at her earliest convenience,’ says he, damned formal. ‘And present our compliments and our apologies for intruding upon her at this untimely hour.’ As the darkie goggled and tottered away, Spring rounded on me. ‘You’re in my company,’ he snaps, ‘so mind your bloody manners.’

      I was looking about me, astonished. The spacious hall was shrouded in dust-sheets, packages were stacked everywhere, bound and labelled as for a journey; it looked like a wholesale flitting. Then from the landing I heard a female voice, shrill and puzzled, and the nigger butler came shambling into view, followed by a stately figure that I knew well, clad in a fine embroidered silk dressing-gown.

      As always, she was garnished like Pompadour, her hennaed hair piled high above that plump handsome face, jewels glistening in her ears and at her wrists and on that splendid bosom that I remembered so fondly; even in my anxious state, it did me good just to watch ’em bounce as she swayed down the stairs – as usual in the evening, she plainly had a pint or two of port inside her. She descended grand as a duchess, peering towards us in the hall’s dim light, and then she checked with a sudden scream of ‘Beauchamp!’ and came hurrying down the last few steps and across the hall, her face alight.

      ‘Beauchamp! You’ve come back! Well, I never! Wherever ’ave you been, you rascal! I declare – let’s ’ave a look at you!’

      For a moment I was taken aback, until I recalled that she knew me as Beauchamp Millward Comber – God knew how many names I’d passed under in America: Arnold, Prescott, Fitz-something-or-other. But at least she was glad to see me, glowing like Soul’s Awakening and holding out her hands; I believe I’d have been enveloped if she hadn’t checked modestly at the sight of Spring, who was bowing stiffly from the waist with his hat across his guts.

      ‘Susie,’ says I, ‘this is my … my friend, Captain John Charity Spring.’

      ‘Ow, indeed,’ says she, and beamed at him, up and down, and blow me if he didn’t take her hand and bow over it. ‘Most honoured to make your acquaintance, marm,’ says he. ‘Your humble obedient.’

      ‘I never!’ says Susie, and gave him a roving look. ‘A distinguished pleasure, I’m sure. Oh, stuff, Beauchamp – d’you think I’m goin’ to do the polite with you, too? Come ’ere, an’ give us a kiss!’

      Which I did, and a hearty slobber she made of it, while Spring looked on, wearing what for him passed as an indulgent smile. ‘An’ wherever ’ave you been, then? – I thought you was back in England months ago, an’ me wishin’ I was there an’ all! Now, come up, both of you, an’ tell me wot brings you back – my, I almost ’ad apoplexy, seeing you sudden like that …’ And then she stopped, uncertain, and the laughter went out of her fine green eyes, as she looked quickly from one to other of us. She might be soft where well-set-up men were concerned, but she was no fool, and had a nose for mischief that a peeler would have envied.

      ‘Wot’s the matter?’ she said sharply. Then: ‘It’s trouble – am I right?’

      ‘Susie,’ says I, ‘it’s as bad as can be.’

      She said nothing for a moment, and when she did it was to tell the butler, Brutus, to bar the door and admit no one without her leave. Then she led the way up to her private room and asked me, quite composed, what was up.

      It was only when I began to tell it that the enormity of what I was saying, and the risk I was running in saying it, came home to me. I confined it to the events of that day, saying nothing of my own adventures since I’d last seen her – all she had known of me then was that I was an Englishman running from the Yankee Navy, a yarn I’d spun on the spur of the moment. As I talked, she sat upright on her chair in the silk-hung salon, her jolly, handsome face serious for once, and Spring was mum beside me on the couch, holding his hat on his knees, prim as a banker, although I could feel the crouched force in him. I prayed Susie would play up, because God knew what the lunatic would do if she decided to shop us. I needn’t have worried; when I’d done, she sat for a moment, fingering the tassels on her gaudy bedgown, and СКАЧАТЬ