George Fraser - Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

‘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 , fn5is 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 fn6might 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 , fn7I’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 , fn8you 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: