Читать книгу Flashman and the Angel of the Lord - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 12

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 fides^fn6 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 the victim’s blood on his sleeve. The hairy heel was never absent long, though. ‘Aye,’ says he sourly, looking me up and down, ‘I wish I’d a guinea for every poor bastard whose bones must ha’ gone to the making of your glorious pedestal. Gaudetque viam 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 muslin, sari-style, that clung like a gauzy skin but flounced out below the knee above thonged sandals; one ivory shoulder and both arms were bare, and as she swept towards me with a swift graceful stride the flimsy material outlined her figure – gad, it was all there. She carried a long scarf of black silk over one arm – and then to my astonishment I saw it was her hair, gathered in from behind.

‘Sir Harree!’ again, with a glowing smile and her free hand extended, and since we were alone and I was bursting with buck I pressed my lips to her fingers – and nuzzled swiftly up her naked arm in Flashy’s flank attack, across shoulder and neck to her cheek and fastened on her full red lips. She didn’t even gasp; after a second her mouth opened wide, and when I drew her in with a hand on her rump she clung like a good ’un while I kneaded avidly and breathed in her heavy perfume … and then the blasted butler’s step sounded at the stairhead, and she broke away, flushed and laughing, and quickly drew herself up, mock demure.

‘How-de-do, Sir Harree?’ says she, bobbing a curtsey. ‘So kind of you to coll! May I offer you some … refreshment?’

‘Another o’ the same, marm, if you please,’ says I, and she burst out laughing and drew me out on to a shady verandah commanding a splendid view of the sunlit Bay. There was a low table with liquor and tidbits (for two, I noticed), and cushioned rattan swing-chairs, and when the butler had poured us iced slings and tottered away, she made pretty work of seating herself, shrugging this way and that to display her shape, and sweeping that wondrously long hair over the back of her seat – I’d known at first sight that she was a great show-off, and now she raised her glass with a flourish in smiling salute.

‘Thatt is iced brandy and orange, Sir Harree! Your favourite in New Orleans, so Papa told me … among other things, oah yess!’

‘Did he, now? Observant chap, Papa.’ How the blazes had he come to tell her that? ‘But you mustn’t believe all he tells you, you know.’

‘Oah, but I want to!’ cries she, quite the rogue. ‘Such a shocking character he gave you, you can nott imagine!’ She sat erect, counting on slim fingers. ‘Lett me see … oll your naughtee ways, drinking, and smoking and … that you are a verree shameless rake – but he would give no particulars, was that nott mean of him? … oah, and that you were a scoundrel, and told stretchers – and he said you were most cowardlee – which I did nott believe, you are so famous –’

‘But you believed the rest, eh?’

‘Butt of carse, Sir Harree!’ Her voice had the native sing-song that can be delightful in a woman, but in her excitement the chi-chi vowels slipped out hot and strong, and for an instant the ivory skin seemed a shade darker, and the sharp nose and heavy brows more pronounced, as she gestured and prattled – and I admired the stirring curves of breast and hip under the flimsy muslin: never mind the pasture it comes from, it’s the meat that matters.

‘Papa said, of oll the bad men he had known, you were quite the worst!’ She shook her head, wide-eyed. ‘So of carse I must see for myself, you knoaw? Are you so verree wicked … Harree?’

‘Here, I’ll show you!’ says I, and lunged at her, but she drew back, with a pretty little comical flutter towards the hall, where I supposed the butler was lurking, and pressed me to try the tidbits, especially a great sticky bowl of creamed chocolate – in summer! – which she spooned into herself with gluttonous delicacy, between sips at her sling, teasing me with sidelong smiles and assuring me that the mixture was ‘quite heavenlee’.

Well, women flirt all ways to bed: there are the kittens who like to be tickled, and the cats who must be coaxed while they pretend to claw, and the tigresses who have only one end in mind, so to speak. I’d marked Miranda Spring as a novice tigress at our first meeting, and our grapple in the hall had shown her a willing one; if it amused her to play the wanton puss, well, she was seventeen, and a chi-chi, and they’re a theatrical breed, so I didn’t mind – so long as she didn’t prove a mouse, as some of these brazen chits do at the first pop of a button. She seemed nervous and randy together – yet was there a gleam of triumph in the eager smile? Aye, probably couldn’t believe her luck.

‘So Papa warned you off, did he? And did he tell you he’d sworn to kill me if I came near you?’

‘Oah, yess! Jollee exciting! He is so jealous, you know, it is a great bore, for he has kept away oll sarts of boys – men, I mean – ollways thee ones I like best, too! Nott saying he would kill them, you understand,’ she giggled, ‘but you know how he can be.’

‘M’mh … just an inkling. Cramps your style, does he?’

She tossed her head and dabbed cream from her lips with a fold of her dress. ‘Nott when he is in Grahamstown!’

‘When the cat’s away, eh? Finished your pudding, have you? Very good, let’s play!’ I made another lunge, and got home this time, seizing her bosom and stopping her mouth, and the lustful slut lay there revelling in it, thrusting her tongue between my teeth, with never a thought for the butler, and I was wondering how we were going to perform the capital act on a cane swing only four feet long, when she purred in my ear: ‘Once upon a time, the cat came home …’

Fortunately the swing was anchored, or we’d have been over.

‘What! D’you mean –’

‘Oah, not from Grahamstown, sillee! Papa was here, in town, but not expected. It was two years ago, when I was onlee fifteen, and quite stupid, you knoaw – and there was a French gentleman from Mauritius, much older, but whom I liked ever so … And Papa flew into a great rage, and forbade him to see me – but then Papa was absent, and Michel came to the house … to my room, quite late … and Papa came home from the club, quite early …’

‘Jesus! What then?’

‘Nothing, then … Papa looked at him, in that way he has, and said “You’re receipted and filed, mister”, and Michel laughed at him, and went away.’ You’re a better man than I am, Michel, thinks I. ‘And a little time after, they found poor Michel on Robben Island. He had been flogged to death with a sjambok.’

Just what a fellow needs to hear when he’s coming to the boil, you’ll agree – but I’m the lad who bulled a Malay charmer in the midst of a battle on the Batang Lupar, regardless of shot and steel – and now the wicked bitch was half way down my throat, and rummaging below-stairs with an expert hand. And while I didn’t doubt her story, knowing her fiend of a father, I knew she’d told it only to plague me. And Spring was in Grahamstown – I’d inquired.

‘I’ll give you sjambok, my lady!’ growls I, and lifted her bodily out of the swing, but even as I cast about for galloping room, she left off gnawing at me and panted: ‘Wait … let me show you!’ I set her down, and she seized my hand, hurrying me down to the garden and through a screen of shrubs to a small stone jetty beyond, and there was the smartest little steam yacht moored, all brass and varnish shining in the sun, and not a soul aboard that I could see.

‘For our picnic,’ says she, and her voice was shrill with excitement. She led the way up the swaying plank, and I followed, slavering at the plump stern bobbing under the muslin, and down into the cool shadows of a spacious cabin. I seized her, fore and aft, but she slipped from my lustful grasp, whispering ‘A moment!’ and slammed a door in my face.

While I tore off my clobber, I had time to look about me, and note that J. C. Spring, M.A., did himself as well afloat as he did ashore. There was polished walnut and brocade, velvet curtains on the ports, fine carpet and leather furniture, and even a fireplace with a painting of some Greek idiots in beards – it was a bigger craft than I’d realised, and rivalled the one in which Suleiman Usman had carried us to Singapore; through an open door I could see a lavatory in marble and glass, with a patent showerbath, which for some reason made me randier than ever, and I pounded on her door, roaring endearments; it swung open under my fist, and there she was, on t’other side of the bed, posed with her back to the bulkhead. For a moment I stood staring, and Spring and old Arnold would have been proud of me, for my first thought was ‘Andromeda on her rock, awaiting the monster, ha-ha!’ which proves the benefit of a grounding in the classics.

She was stark naked – and yet entirely clad, for she had cinched in her long hair with a white ribbon round her neck, so that it framed her face like a cowl, while beneath the ribbon it hung in a shimmering black curtain that covered her almost to her ankles. Her arms were spread out, desperate-like, on the panelling, and as I goggled she pushed one knee through the silky tresses and pouted at me.

We never went near the bed, for it would have been a shame to disturb her tableau vivant, much; I just heaved her up and piled in against the panels, grunting for joy, and I’ll swear the boat rocked at its moorings, for she teased no longer when it came to serious work, and I wasn’t for lingering myself. It was splendid fun while it lasted, which was until she began to shudder and scream and tried to throttle me with her hair, so I romped her up and down all the way to the lavatory, where we finished the business under the patent showerbath, once I’d got the knack of the dam’ thing, which ain’t easy with a mad nymph clinging to your manly chest. Most refreshing it was, though, and brought back memories of Sonsee-Array, my Apache princess, who was partial to coupling under waterfalls – which is deuced cold, by the way, and the pebbles don’t help.

Miranda Spring knew a trick worth two of that, for when we’d come to our senses and towelled each other dry, with much coy snickering on her part, she showed me to a little alcove off the main cabin where an excellent collation was laid out under covers, with bubbly in a bucket. We recruited our energies with lobster and chicken, but when I proposed that we finish off the wine on deck, she came all over languid and said we would be ‘ever so comfee’ on the bed – and if you’d seen that exquisite young body artfully swathed in her hair, with those fine ivory poonts thrusting impudently through it, you’d have agreed.

But she must finish her dessert, too – like all chi-chis she had a passion for sugary confections – so she brought it to bed, if you please, and gorged herself on eclairs and cream slices while I fondled her, well content to play restfully for a change. Not so madam; being a greedy little animal, she must satisfy both her appetites at once, and call me conservative if you will, I hold that a woman who gallops you while consuming a bowl of blancmange is wanting in respect. I left off nibbling her tits to rebuke her bad form, but the saucy little gannet stuck out her tongue and went on eating and cantering in a most leisurely fashion. Right, my lass, thinks I, and waited until she’d downed the last cherry and licked the spoon, settled herself for a rousing finish, and was beginning to moan and squeal in ecstatic frenzy – at which point I gave an elaborate yawn, hoisted her gently from the saddle, and announced that I was going on deck for a swim.

She squawked like a staggered hen, eyes still rolling. ‘Sweem? Wha’ … now? But … but … oah, no, no, nott yett –’

‘Why not? Better than all this boring frowsting in bed, what? Come along, a dip’ll do you no end of good.’ I gave them a playful flip. ‘Keep you in trim, you know.’

‘Boreeng?’ If you can imagine Andersen’s Mermaid moved from dazed bewilderment to screaming passion in an instant, you have Miranda. ‘Boreeng? Me? Aieee, you … you –’ But even as I prepared to parry a clawing attack, to my amazement her rage gave way to sudden consternation, and then her arms were round my neck and she was pleading frantically with me to stay, kissing and fondling and exerting her small strength to pull me down.

‘Oah, no, no, please, Harree, please don’t go – please, I am ever so sorree! Oah, I was wicked to tease – you mustn’t go up, nott yett! Please, stay … love me, Harree, oah please, don’t go!’

‘Changeable chit, ain’t you? No, no, miss, I’m going topsides for a swim, and some sunshine –’

‘No, no!’ It was a squeal of real alarm. ‘Please, please, you must stay here!’ She fairly writhed on to me, gasping. Well, I’ve known ’em eager, but this was flattery of the most persuasive kind. ‘Please, please, Harree … love me now, oah do!’

‘Wel-ll … no, later! If you’re a good little girl, after my swim –’

‘No, now! Oah, I shall be a badd big girl!’ She gave a whimper of entreaty. ‘Stay with me, and I will be verree badd! Don’ go, and I will …’ She put her lips to my ear, giggling, and whispered. I was so taken aback I may well have blushed.

‘Good God, I never heard the like! Why, you abandoned brat! Where on earth did you hear of such …? At school! I don’t believe it!’ She nodded gleefully, eyes shining, and I was speechless. Depraved women I’ve known, thank heaven, but this one was barely out of dancing class, and here she was, proposing debauchery that would have scandalised a Cairo pimp. Heavens, it was new to me, even, and I told her so. She smiled and bared her teeth.

‘Oah, then you will certainlee not go on deck just yett!’ whispers she. ‘You will stay with wicked Miranda, yess?’

Well, a gentleman should always indulge the whims of the frail sex, even if it does mean forgoing a refreshing swim, but I confess that if I hadn’t been a degenerate swine myself, her behaviour thereafter would have shocked me. I’d have thought, at thirty-six and having enjoyed the attentions of Lola Montez, Susie Willinck, my darling Elspeth, and other inventive amorists too numerous to mention, that I’d nothing to learn about dalliance, but by the time young Miranda (seventeen, I mean to say!) had had her girlish will of me, and I was lying more dead than alive in the showerbath, I could barely gasp one of Spring’s Latin tags: ‘Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,^fn9 by gum!’

I must have managed to crawl back to the bed, for when I woke it was growing dusk, and Miranda was dressed and wearing an apron, humming merrily as she cooked omelettes in the galley for our supper, while I lay reflecting on the lack of supervision in colonial finishing schools, and wondering if I’d be fit for more jollity before the mail tender left in the morning. I ate my omelette with a trembling hand, but when she teased me into sharing asparagus with her, nibbling towards each other along the spear until our mouths met, I began to revive, and was all for it when she said we should spend the night aboard, and her butler would see my traps taken down to the wharf in good time.

‘But I shall be quite desolate at parting, for I have never knoawn anyone as jollee as you, Harree!’ cries she, stroking my whiskers. ‘You are ever so excessivelee wicked – far worse than Papa said!’

‘Then we’re a pair. Tell you what – let’s take a turn on deck, and then we’ll play picquet – and if you cheat, I’ll tie you up in that Rapunzel hair of yours, and show you what wickedness is.’

‘But I am thee greatest cheat!’ laughs she, so we went on deck, and I had to tell her the story of Raphunzel, which she’d never heard, while she nestled against me by the rail in the warm darkness, with the water chuckling against the hull and the last amber glow dying above the western rim. It was the place to linger with a girl, but presently it grew chilly, so we went down to our hand of picquet. She was no cheat at all, though, so I had to teach her, but once or twice I wondered if her mind was on the game at all, for she kept glancing at the clock, and when it struck she started, and fumbled her cards, and apologised, laughing like a schoolgirl – ‘clumsee Clara!’

The nursery exclamation reminded me what a child she was – Lord love us, I’d been married before she was born. Aye, and a damned odd child, behind the vivacious chatter and mischievous smile, with her Babylonian bedroom manners. Peculiar lusts are supposed to be a male prerogative (well, look at me), but the truth is we ain’t in it with the likes of the Empress Tzu-hsi or Lola of the Hair-brush or that Russian aunt I knew who went in for flogging in steambaths … or Miranda Spring, not yet of age, smiling brightly to cover a little yawn. Jaded from her mattress exertions, no doubt; we’ll brisk you up presently, thinks I, with a few of those Hindu gymnastics that Mrs Leslie of Meerut was so partial to …

There was a vague sound from somewhere outside, and then a heavy footfall on the deck over our heads. The butler from the house, was my first thought – and Miranda dropped a card in shuffling, retrieved it, and offered me the pack to cut.

‘Who is it?’ says I, and she glanced at the clock. Suddenly I realised she was trembling, but it was excitement, not fear, and the smile in the black eyes was one of pure triumph.

‘That will be Papa at last,’ says she.