fecisse ruina,fn7 I’ll lay!’
Seeing he was out to charm, I said that he seemed to have done pretty well himself – for he was looking mighty prosperous, suitings of the finest and diamonds on his daughter, and I was curious. He scratched his beard, sneering.
‘Well enough. That fat strumpet of yours did me a good turn, trepanning me to profit and position, ’though she didn’t know it. Yes, my bucko, I’m warm – and I draw enough water in this colony, as you’ll find if you cross me. Felicitas habet multos amicos,fn8 you know!’
I didn’t, but couldn’t resist a gibe of my own. ‘Not in black ivory these days, though, I’ll bet!’ For a second the wild spark flickered in the empty eyes, and I prepared to dodge.
‘You’ll open that trap o’ yours once too often!’ growls he. ‘You’re sailing on the next mail, I take it? You’d better – and until then, keep your distance, d’ye hear? Good night, and be damned to you!’
Shipmate o’ mine, thinks I, as he stamped back to the house; I was wet with sweat, and it was with profound relief that I saw his carriage leave a few moments later, my half-caste charmer trilling with laughter and the Scourge of the Seas with his hat jammed down and snarling at the coachee. I ventured in again, but it was a half-hearted hero who acknowledged the compliments of the assembly, I can tell you; the coming of Spring is something you don’t get over quickly, and Grey eyed me curiously when I took my leave.
‘Interesting man – I had no notion you knew him in his trading days. Oh, he farms now, owns great acres about Grahamstown, and is quite the nabob – must be one of the wealthiest men in the Colony, I daresay, has his own yacht to bring him down from Port Elizabeth. His daughter is charming, is she not?’ An instant’s hesitation, then: ‘Captain Spring is a considerable classic, too; his lectures on the latifundia were widely attended last year. He is on the board of public examiners, you know, and is forever pressing us to found a university here.’
I decided to do J.C. a bit of good, in return for the scare he’d given me. ‘Ah, he misses the cloisters I suppose – you know they unfrocked him, or whatever they do, at Oxford? Never got over it, poor old chap, named his ship the Balliol College – slaver, she was, and a pirate, they say. He’s wanted for murder in Louisiana, too.’
He didn’t even stir a patrician brow. ‘Indeed … ah, well. A very good night to you, colonel … and my warmest regards to Lord Palmerston.’
That was how much I shocked him. The fact was, you see, that so many chaps who’d been little better than brigands in the earlies – fellows like Brooke and the Taipans and the South Sea crowd – had become upstanding pillars of society in their mellow years, that no one would care a fig if Spring had founded his fortune shipping niggers – not if he was going to apply it to good works like a new university, and went to morning service regular. As old Peacock says, respectable means rich – look at that slippery diamond-slinger Rhodes. What price the Spring Chair of Practical Philosophy? I’d give the inaugural lecture myself, on how he tried to drop blacks overboard before the patrollers boarded him.
That he was filthy rich was confirmed by gossip in the town. ‘He could write a draft for a million,’ I was told, and ‘I’d hate to be the man that bilked him of a fiver, though,’ says another, from which I gathered that my beloved old commander’s belaying-pin reputation still stuck to him, however loud he hollered in church. So it was a relief when I heard he’d gone back to Grahamstown, out of harm’s way, leaving the lovely Miranda to queen it at his fine house by the sea, where she was wont to entertain the younger set – of whom I was not going to be one, I may tell you. Delectable she might be, but even Helen of Troy would lose her allure if the price of her favours was liable to be a dip in the bay with a bag of coal on your feet. No, I was not tempted … until the day before I was due to sail, when a note was delivered at the hotel. It read:
My dear Sir Harry – altho’ I believe I should not style you so just yet, still everyone knows, and I have not so many Gallant Knights of my acquaintance that I can forgo the pleasure of addressing you again as – Dear Sir Harry!
Our meeting was cut so short by Papa that I shall feel myself altogether neglected if you do not call before you leave for Home, which I believe you do on tomorrow’s mail. We intend a ‘Sea-picnic’ today, and ’twill not be complete without the handsomest colonel in the Army! There! I have no shame at all, you see! Do come, and gratify your admirer, and soon to be, I hope, your friend,
Miranda Spring
P.S. Papa continues at Grahamstown, but we have the Ariel for our picnic. I shall send a carriage at noon – please, let it not return empty!
Well, this was a free and easy miss, if you like, for no Mama of Simla or Belgravia would have permitted a billet as warm as this one; she might as well have added ‘P.P.S. Bed at ten sharp’. But then, she had no Mama – and Papa was seven hundred miles away, bless his black heart … he’d warned her off, that was plain, but this was a filly who’d delight in defiance, from what I’d seen of her … and she wanted the ‘handsomest colonel in the Army’ to ‘gratify’ her, the saucy little spanker, and who could blame her? I tingled at the thought of those soft shoulders and the wanton glint in the black eyes – aye, but what about the bale-fire glint in dear Papa’s? For a second I quailed … but no, I couldn’t let this one slip by.
Don’t mistake me – I’m not one of those who count danger an added spice, least of all in houghmagandie, as Elspeth used to call it whenever I got her tipsy. But here, while there was no risk at all, there would be a special zest to romping Spring’s daughter – the pity was that he’d never know … unless I wrote him a line when I was safe in England … ‘Dear Prospero, have rogered Miranda. O, brave new world! The weather continues fine. Yours ever, Caliban.’ He’d absolutely die of rage. Better still, she might present him with a little supercargo nine months hence … gad, that would be an interesting infant, Flash-Spring with a dash of fellaheen. Oh, merry thoughts!
I made my packages then and there, whistling, and settled up, for the best plan would be to outstay the other guests, gallop the night away, kiss her a tearful farewell, and tool straight down to the mail tender. I’d be half way home before the swine was back from Grahamstown – oh, I must let him know, somehow! He’d never dare come back to England to seek revenge … would he? I had another qualm at the memory of those glaring eyes and murderous fury … well, we’d see.
The carriage was there sharp on twelve, Malay coachman and all, and I was in prime fettle as we bowled through the suburbs, which were a great contrast to the shabby port, being very grand even in those days, with shady avenues of oak and clumps of silver-trees, and fine houses among the green; it was Cape summer, and the whole countryside was ablaze with garden blossoms and the famous wild flowers. Chateau Spring, which stood by the sea, was even more splendid than I’d imagined, a lofty white colonial mansion in wide grounds fit to rival Kew, with a marble bathing pool11 secluded among rhododendrons, and as I waited in the airy hall, admiring the circular sweep of the double staircase and inhaling the blissful aroma of money, I reflected that there’s no gain like the ill-gotten; it beats honest accumulation hands down.
I’d expected the place to be alive with company, but there wasn’t a soul except the ancient black butler who’d gone to announce me – and I found myself wondering about that capital ‘H’ she’d put on ‘home’ in her note. She was half-caste, you see, and they put far more stock in being ‘English’ than we who take it for granted … so she’d spelled it ‘Home’ – where she’d never been, and likely never would be. Not that being ‘coloured’, as they call it down yonder, mattered much in those days, not with a white father who could have bought Natal and would have kicked the life out of anyone who didn’t treat his daughter like a duchess … still, I wondered how many Mamas with eligible sons regretted previous engagements. And I was just concluding hornily that I was probably the only guest, when:
‘Sir Harree!’ Here she was, sailing down the staircase, and I took in breath at the sight of her. She was wearing a dress of pale