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 nothing to do with your being shanghaied! It was Susie Willinck – I didn’t even know she was going to –’
‘Shut your gob!’ Oriel manners still, I could see. He shoved me against a tree and planted himself four-square, hands thrust into pockets, quarter-deck style. ‘You needn’t protest innocence to me! You’d never have the spine to slip me a queer draught – aye, but you’d sit by and see it done, you mangy tyke! Well, nulla pallescere culpa,fn3 my decorated hero, for it doesn’t matter a dam, d’ye see? Fuit Ilium,fn4 if you know your Virgil, which you never did, blast you!’
So he was still larding his conversation with Latin tags – he’d been a mighty scholar, you see, before they rode him out of Oxford on a rail, for garrotting the Vice-chancellor or running guns into Wadham, likely, tho’ he always claimed it was academic jealousy.
‘Well, what the devil are you blackguarding a chap for, then?’ The horror of meeting him, and being rushed out headlong, had quite unmanned me – but this was civilisation, dammit, and even he daren’t offer violence, much. ‘By God, Spring!’ cries I, courage returning, ‘you’d best mind your manners! This ain’t Dahomey, or your bloody slave-deck, and I’m not your supercargo, either –’
‘Hold your infernal tongue!’ He thrust his face into mine, pale eyes glittering, and his scar pulsing like a snake. ‘Take that tone with me and, by God, you’ll wish you hadn’t! Bah! Think you’re safe, don’t you, because mortuo leoni et lepores insultant,fn5 is that it?’
‘How the hell do I know? Can’t you speak English?’
‘Well, the lion may be old, mister, but he ain’t dead, and he can still take you by your dirty neck and scrag you like the rat you are!’ He gripped my collar, leaning closer and speaking soft. ‘I don’t know what ill wind blew you here, nor I don’t care, and I’ve no quarrel with you – yet – because you’re not worth it, d’ye see?’ He began to shake me, gritting his teeth. ‘But I’m telling you, for the good o’ your health, that while you continue to foul the Cape with your scabrous presence – you’ll steer clear of my daughter, d’ye hear me? Oh, I saw you leering yonder, like the rutting hog you are! I know you –’
‘Damn your eyes, I only said “How-de-do” –’
‘And I’m saying “How-de-don’t”! I know it means nothing to vermin like you that she’s seventeen and convent-reared and pure!’ That was what he thought; I’d seen the look in her eye. ‘So you can spare me your indignant vapourings, ye hear? Aye, fronti nulla fidesfn6 might ha’ been coined for you, you lecherous offal! Didn’t I see you tup your way from Whydah to the Gulf?’ His scar was warming up again, and his voice rising to its customary bawl. ‘And that fat slut in Orleans – did you have the gall to marry her?’
‘Hush, can’t you? Certainly not!’ In fact, I had; my second bigamy – but he’d opposed the match, being a Bible-thumper like so many blackguards, and I knew if I admitted it I’d have his teeth in my throat.
‘I’ll wager! Bah, who’s to believe you – lie by nature, don’t you!’ He stepped back, snarling. ‘So … you’re warned! Steer clear of my girl, because if you don’t … by the Holy, I’ll kill you!’
I believed him. I remembered Omohundro with two feet of steel through his innards – and Spring had only just met him. Now, my carnal thoughts had vanished like the morning dew before the warmth of the fond father’s admonition, and it was with relief and true sincerity that I drew myself up, straightened my tunic, and spoke with quiet dignity.
‘Captain Spring, I assure you that my regard for your daughter is merely that of a gentleman for a charming lady.’ Hearing his jaws grate at what he took for sarcasm, I added hastily: ‘By the way, how is Mrs Spring – in excellent health, I trust?’
‘Mrs Spring is dead!’ snaps he – and, d’ye know, I was quite put out, for she’d been a harmless old biddy, played the harmonium at sea-burials, used to chivvy her diabolic spouse to wear his muffler when he went a-slaving, mad as a hatter. ‘And that is not her daughter. Miranda’s mother was a Coast Arab.’ His glare dared me to so much as blink. I’d been right, though: half-caste.
‘Miranda, eh? Delightful name … from a play, ain’t it?’
‘Jesus wept!’ says he softly. ‘Arnold must ha’ been proud of you!’ He considered me, cocking his white head. ‘Aye … perhaps he would’ve been, at that … you’ve done well – by appearances, anyway.’ His voice was almost mild – but he was like that, raging storm and then flat calm, and both terrifying. I’d seen him lash a man almost to death, and then go down to afternoon tea and a prose about Ovid, with