“I’d not ha’ given you one red cent!” says Annette Mandeville. “You’d be doing it for your miserable life, and been thankful for that!”
“Ah, but we know your generous nature, don’t we? And suppose I’d refused?”
“You? Refuse? With your worthless skin at stake? You forget, I know the kind of cur you are – I heard you that day at Greystones, when my husband and his white trash caught you, and you whimpered and grovelled like a whipped nigra wench!”
“My, how you must miss the gracious life of the old plantation!”
“Whining for your life! And I’d thought you were a man!”
“Man enough for one eager little Creole lady, though, wasn’t I? But then, I was probably a welcome change after your nigger fieldhands … gently, Annette dear, that fork is for dessert, not for stabbing … Anyway, we’re not at Greystones now – and let me tell you, if your fat friend hadn’t agreed to pay me, I’d be on my way to the British ministry this minute. Why, I’d not even have to go that far – there’s a party of Englishmen at the corner table yonder, by the sound of them … who’s to stop me joining ’em, eh? Or sending for a constable? Not your ridiculous Kuklos, I’ll be bound! Or would they come rushing in, with their Guy Fawkes hoods –”
“You fool! Don’t you know the kind of men you’re dealing with – the danger you’re in? If you were to move two steps from this table, they’d be the last you’d ever take –”
“Oh, fudge! What, in a hotel dining-room, crowded with guests? Hardly the place for an assassination – what would the maître say?”
“Listen to me! There are two men in this room now, armed and watching you – try to escape or call for help and you’ll be shot down without mercy. I mean it. This is not England – such things happen here. I’ve known the Kuklos kill a man on the steps of the Capitol, before scores of people, in broad day. If you don’t believe me – run for the door! But if you value your life, you’ll keep faith with them.”
“My dear Annette! Can this be alarm on my behalf? Is that wifely concern I see in those bonny grey eyes?”
“I’m concerned that the Kuklos’s work is done – and that I play my part in it, and you play yours –”
“Then you’d better stop whispering like some Dago conspirator and finish your pudding like a good little wife, Mrs Beauchamp Comber, and smile ever so sweetly at Mr Comber, and insist on cutting his cigar for him … why, thank’ee, my dear! Are we on honeymoon, by the way? If so, let’s forego the savoury and coffee, and repair to our nuptial couch … no? Love’s first bloom has faded, has it? Oh, well … coffee, waiter!”
I was testing the wicket, and finding it confoundedly sticky – as I’d known it would be the moment I’d awoken from my exhausted sleep and remembered where I was and what had happened. And hopes that I’d dreamed the whole ghastly thing were dashed by the sight of Joe sitting by the bedroom door like a black nemesis, sporting his pistol. I was caught, for the moment, and could only hope that my little charade before retiring had taken some effect.
It was late afternoon when I came to, and someone had been busy while I slept, for beside the bed there was a new outfit of clothing – and damned if it didn’t fit perfectly, even to the collar. But what sent a chill down my spine was the name on the tailor’s tab: B. M. Comber; it was even stamped in the lining of the hat. I’d formed a respect for the Kuklos from the ease with which they’d spirited me away from Crixus, but these little touches told me they were formidable indeed.
While I dressed, Joe brewed me some coffee on a spirit stove, and directed me to the drawing-room. There was no sign of Lachesis and Clotho, but Atropos was writing at the table, and Annette was on hand, stony-eyed but mighty jimp in a gown that seemed to consist of flowers and gauze. He complimented himself on my appearance, and hoped I approved of the sober cravat he’d chosen for me. “Our colonial taste runs to more extrav’gant colours, but since your ac-cent marks you as English, why, you best look it,” says he, chuckling fatly as though he’d never put a point to my throat in his life. “The suit’s well enough, I guess, an’ will serve for day an’ evenin’ – I fear we still lag behind London in our deplo’able failure to change after six o’clock. Now, suh, sit down, an’ tend to what I say.”
First of all, says he, five thousand dollars (“we felt your request for remuneration was reasonable, but stiff”) would be placed to the credit of B. M. Comber in a bank of the New York Safety Fund, and might be drawn at either of two addresses in Washington and New York, “but only after the day on which the country is ringin’ with the nooz that Old Ossawatomie has made an armed incursion into V’ginia.” The gross cheeks creased in a sardonic grin. “Then all you have to do is present the draft which you’ll find in the breast pocket o’ that noo coat you’re wearin’ … Now I see it on you, I don’t know as I can bring myself to like that collah …” He squinted critically while I examined the draft, on the Citizens’ Bank of Louisiana, and my spirits soared. It was all window-dressing to be sure, and they’d never put a cent to Comber’s account – but at least they were pretending to treat my offer of mercenary service seriously. Maybe they even believed it. Not that they’d trust me an inch … but they might be just a little less watchful. I pocketed the draft and told him the coat collar suited me to admiration.
“Well, if you’re content … now, suh, you an’ Miz Mandeville will travel to Noo Yawk by the Night Flyer, as Mistuh an’ Miz Beauchamp Comber – you’re bound to keep that name, ’cos it’s the one John Brown will be expectin’. Joe will accompany you, as your slave, an’ when he has telegraphed Crixus tomorrow that you’ve been ‘found’ in Noo Yawk, he will take you on to Boston or Conco’d, where you will meet Brown, prob’ly at the home of Franklin B. Sanbo’n, a prom’nent abolitionist. There you an’ Joe will ’list in Brown’s service. ’Tis all planned out, you see, neat as a Quaker’s bonnet,” says he with satisfaction. “By the by, ’til you leave Noo Yawk, you are in the care of Miz Mandeville – Miz Comber, I should say,” he shot her a greasy smirk, “an’ will obey any instructions she may give you. What these may be, I can only guess –”
“Keep to the business, you fat swine!” snaps she.
“Why, surely, dahlin’ … an’ see that you mind yours, an’ the Kuklos’s. Jus’ remember you ain’t takin’ this trip for pleasure alone.” There was an edge to the soft voice, and I thought, hollo, is someone’s piggy carcase aglow with jealous passion for our tiny poppet? It conjured up a tableau too hideous to contemplate …
“So theah it is, Mistuh Comber. All you need do is go ’long quietly, do whatevah Brown requiahs of you, go with him right down the line to Harper’s Ferry or wherevah it may be, put your trust in the Good Lawd … an’ go home to England with five thousan’ dollahs in your money-puss. An’ again, an’ for the last time,” he gave me his blandest fat smile, “don’t evah think you can jump off the wagon ’long the way. The Kuklos will be theah, always, an’ if you play false by wo’d or deed … then suh, you are crow-pickin’s.”
He rose, smoothing his coat and shooting his cuffs, and stowed his writings in his pocket. “I b’lieve that is all, so I confide you to deah Annette – an’ Joe, of course, an’ your unseen guardians. Your se’vant, ma’am … honoured to have made your acquaintance, suh. I bid you adieu, an’ good fortune … an’ you take care, now, ye heah?”
D’ye know, when I look back on those bizarre few hours when the Kuklos took me by the neck and twisted me to their crazy ends, the rummest thing of all wasn’t the amazing coincidence of Annette, or those grotesque hoods, or that obese monster so pathetically bang up to the nines, or even their incredible plot – but those last six words from Atropos: after all the threats and blackmail, the gentle ritual of the Dixie farewell. God help me, I believe he meant it.
When he’d gone, it occurred to me to twit Annette that she had an admirer in our dandy hippo. I asked innocently if he was her lover, expecting a fine explosion, and was taken flat aback by her reply:
“He is my husband.”
“Good God! He can’t be – what, that great bag of jelly? What happened to Mandeville?”
“And you married that? Well, I never … gad, what a wedding night that must have been …” I let out a yelp of horror. “But, my God … he knew … well, he suspected, I’m sure … what we’d been up to, I mean … before he arrived … you know, when we were …”
“He was already here, in this room. Watching us,” says she, cool as be-damned before the mirror, tittivating her low-cut bodice. “You will see there is a spy-hole in the door to the bedroom.”
“You don’t mean it! But … but …” I had a terrifying memory of lying helpless beneath his swordstick – and he’d just watched me rattling his wife. “Godalmighty! But … you mean … he don’t mind?”
“On the contrary.” She patted her hair. “He insists.”
“Well, strike me dead! I say … he must be a damned rum chap – phew! But … you, I mean – why the devil …?”
“Do I do it, you would ask?” She took a last sneer at the mirror, and faced me. “He is the richest man in Louisiana. He is also the brain, though not the head, of the Kuklos. You’ve been singularly honoured by his personal attention, a measure of your importance.” She gave me a withering look, up and down. “You probably think him mad. He is not. Whatever he plans, succeeds, and whatever he promises, he performs. Remember that, for your own sake. Now, it is past five o’clock, and I wish to dine before we leave.” She drew herself up like a tiny Guardsman. “Give me your arm and take me down.”
So I did, ruminating on the manners and morals of the Old South, and now that we’d broken the ice so splendidly we were soon chatting away in the dining-room like an old married couple, as I’ve described at the beginning of this chapter. I affected a carelessness I was far from feeling, because I wanted to test just how real were the threats that Atropos had made; her alarm told me all I wanted to know, and gave me some useful information: apart from Joe, who was lurking in the lobby while we ate, there were two Kuklos “shadows” watching me, and no doubt they or others would be on hand all the way to New York. I’d have to look damned slippy when the time came to run.
It was a mad pickle, you may think: held prisoner amidst all the bustle and confusion of civilised society – but if your captors know their business, and are ruthless enough, why, you might as well be chained in a dungeon. Rudi von Starnberg took me halfway across Germany against my will, simply by having a gun and a knife and being ready to use ’em if I so much as sneezed out of turn, and I’d no doubt the Kuklos would be equally unscrupulous. So I could only wait, and seem to play up – both of which I’m good at – and take comfort in the knowledge that they’d not harm me unless forced to, since I was no use to them dead or bound for Kentucky.
Being resigned, I felt easier, and even a touch light-headed, as we cowards will when we feel safe for the moment. The upshot was that, with bottle and belly-timber before him, Flashy became if not beastly, at least mischievously, drunk, enjoying himself in contemplating the charms of the choice little icicle across the table. I’d already noted that she’d put some elegant flesh on her elfin form over the years, and was altogether a juicier morsel than she’d been at Greystones; she might still wear the expression of an ill-tempered ferret, but that kind of viciousness on a handsome face has its own attraction, and I knew perfectly well that her artistic paintwork and stylishly coiled blonde hair had been designed for my benefit; she’d always loathed and lusted after me together, which only added spice to her allurement, and I looked forward as much as she did to the enjoyment of Mr Comber’s marital rights.
On this happy thought I was content to idle my way through the dinner, which like all American meals was gargantuan and over-rich; how the devil they can put away a massive breakfast of steak, ham, eggs, terrapin, or giant oysters, two dinners at noon and five, and still be fit to beat their bellies at supper, is beyond me; even Annette, who wasn’t two pisspots and a handle high, worked her way through five courses without breaking sweat on her pale immaculate brow. Unlike most of her compatriots, she didn’t shout through her food, so I had leisure to listen to the deafening chatter around us. From the trumpetings of two portly curry-faced gentry at the next table23 I gathered that President Buchanan was a weak-kneed nincompoop for not going ahead and “teachin’ them dam’ impident greasers a lesson” by annexing half their country; war with Mexico would, in the speaker’s opinion, rally the public behind “Old Buck”, ensure a Democratic victory in next year’s election, and be “one in the eye for that slippery bastard Seward an’ his dam’ Black Republicans.”
“Ah heah Seward’s goin’ to England,” says his companion.
“Bes’ place fo’ the nigra-lovin’ sunnavabitch! Ah hope his vessel sinks – Ah mean it, suh, Ah do! Kin you ’magine President Seward? That’s whut it’ll come to yet, you mark mah wo’ds!”
“Come now, suh, he may not git nom’nated, even!”
“You wanna wager, suh? Why, he’s got Weed an’ Greeley in his pocket … whut’s that ye say, ’Tilda? Give you ladies the vote an’ ’twill be President Douglas!24 Haw-haw! Why, he ain’t but a dam’ dwarf! You’d like to cuddle him, ye say? Ye heah that, Ambrose? ’Tilda thinks Douglas is right cuddlesome! Waal, now, honey, Ah reckon his beauteous Adele might have suthin’ to say ’bout that; Ah jus’ reckon she might – an’ so might yo’s truly! You keep yo’ cuddles for papa, ye heah?” And the lecherous old goat laid a fond paw on the arm of the languid ’Tilda, who might have been his wife, but I think not, from the wanton freedom with which she had been glancing in my direction.
“Ah declare ’Tilda would put Adele right in the shade!” cries the other roué gallantly. “Nevah seen her in sech looks! How you do that, ’Tilda? All the soirees an’ parties, you oughta be clean wore out, but darn if you don’t come up fresher’n dew on a lily! You got some magic potion, sweetheart?”
“Know whut she’s got?” cries her escort. “She got this ’lectric rejuvenatin’ contraption, an’ a coloured wench to mechanic it – why, they all the crack wi’ the smart gals, ain’t they, ’Tilda? Puts the bloom right back in those damask cheeks in no time at all – an’ all over, too! Haw-haw! Yessir, that’s mah honey’s secret!”
“Why, you make me soun’ like some kinda monster works on ’lectric’ty!” drawls the fair ’Tilda, lowering her lashes at me and showing her profile. “But mah machine is right stimulatin’.”
“Our train leaves in an hour,” says Annette sharply. “You will wait in the lobby while Joe fetches a carriage – and keep your tongue and eyes to yourself, do you hear?” Her mouth was tight with anger, and there was a little flush on her cheek. “Do nothing to excite attention.”
“Difficult, when we’re such a handsome couple,” says I, leering. “If we want to pass unnoticed, why the dooce are we parading before half Washington? Suppose one of Crixus’s people is about?”
“We know them all by sight. And they will not be seeking you here, or at the station. Joe has seen to it. Stop guzzling that wine, you fool! Now … follow me out closely.”
What with the booze, my natural taste for devilment, and confidence that I was perfectly safe as long as I didn’t try to run for it, I felt a sudden urge to put turpentine on her dainty little tail and light it. So when I’d drawn back her chair, and she had made for the lobby without a glance at me, I navigated carefully in her wake, turned in the doorway, surveyed the glittering splendour of the dining-room and its chattering gluttons, drew a deep breath and let out a Lakota war-whoop at the top of my voice. A woman shrieked, men sprang to their feet, a passing waiter went up like a galvanised grouse and dropped his loaded tray with a tremendous smash – and then there was dead silence as a hundred mouths gaped and two hundred eyes goggled; every head turned, in fact – save for a tall chap near the door who kept his eyes fixed on his plate, and another with his back turned who watched me like a hawk in a mirror on the far wall.
I strolled into the lobby, where Annette was standing rigid with fury; people were craning towards the dining-room to see what the row was. “Are you mad?” she hissed.
“You were right,” says I, “the boys are in there. But the Kuklos ought to train ’em better, you know; ’tain’t natural not to stare when a lunatic cuts loose in public. Now, then, where’s that dilatory Joe with the carriage, eh?”
Her eyes were blazing, but she swept off without a word, leaving me to look about and wonder which of the throng in the lobby might be Kuklos “shadows” – for Joe had disappeared, and the two betrayed by my little ruse in the dining-room hadn’t emerged, but I wasn’t fool enough to imagine that I wasn’t being watched. I gave up, though, for the patrons of Washington hotels in those days were such a mixed lot, my unseen watchers might have been anyone. There were the obvious politicos, standing about in knots puffing their cigars and disputing warmly, wealthy citizens with stout matrons dressed up like May Day cuddies, young blades in fancy weskits and amazing whiskers, with fashionable belles gushing and squealing on their arms, plantation aristocrats in their broad-brimmed straws with little nigger boys toting their bags, likely-looking fellows in city clothes but with the unmistakable silence of the frontier hanging round them like a shroud, barefoot slaves waiting patiently beyond the great doors leading to the marble porch, thin seedy fellows with ferret eyes questing for Senator This or Congressman That and muttering to each other before scurrying away like the political rodents they were, one or two top-drawer strumpets immediately recognisable by being the most tastefully dressed women in view, and everywhere the Great Curse of the New World, the American Child, in all its raucous, spoiled, undisciplined, selfish ghastliness, the female specimens keeping up an incessant high-pitched whine and the male infants racketing like cow-pokes on pay-day. There’s nothing wrong with grown Americans, by and large; you won’t find heartier men or bonnier women anywhere, but the only remedy I can see for their children is to run Herod for President.
Then Joe was at my elbow with a slouch hat and a long coat, guiding me out of the throng and down a passage to the same side door by which I’d entered the hotel, where a growler was waiting with Annette inside, raging silently. She said not a word as we bowled through the dusk to the station, and when we drew up close by the train – they had platforms in those days – she whisked out and into the carriage while Joe signed to me to sit tight. He descended, spying both ways before beckoning abruptly, and I strode quickly through the wreathing steam with the bell clanging overhead, and mounted into the sudden quiet of the train.
I wasn’t well acquainted with American railroads at that time, and was resigned to an uncomfortable long haul through the night to New York, in one of those reeking long coaches in which I’d travelled down from Baltimore, full of noisy unwashed louts whose favourite occupation was spitting at the stove. But no such thing; here was a quiet corridor with private compartments which they called “cabins”, fitted up in tip-top style. Annette was in Number 8, I remember; I had a glimpse of an alcove bed with curtains drawn back, a washstand and comfortable furniture, and then Joe was hustling me into Number 7, which seemed smaller but had a bed beneath the window. I asked him where he was going to sleep, and he replied curtly that he wasn’t. I made myself comfortable while he slipped out, and presently I heard his deep rumble in Annette’s cabin, and the conductor saying anything she wanted, ma’am, anything at all, she should just send her boy, and it would be attended to right smartly.
Then Joe returned, sitting on the floor with his back against the door, and a moment later the bell clanged and the steam whistled and the conductor bawled that this was the Night Flyer to Baltimo’, Wilmin’ton, Philadelphia, Trenton, an’ Noo Yawk, and we jolted and clanked into motion – and I reflected that my evasion would have to wait until journey’s end. I didn’t fancy dropping from a moving train, even if Joe hadn’t been on hand; he was a big, ugly gyascuta, that one, his sleeves tight on his enormous biceps as he sat with his arms folded on his barrel chest, the yellow-flecked eyes rolling at me whenever I stirred on the bed. I found myself studying him: he was your real jet-black Nubian, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, and could have walked into the K.A.R.a nowadays, no questions asked. Having nothing better to do for the moment, I indulged my idle curiosity.
“Joe,” says I, “why are you with the Kuklos?”
He glowered suspiciously. “Whut you mean?”
“Well, you’re Atropos’s slave – yet you’ve been with Crixus on the Railroad, had the chance to escape to free soil. Why didn’t you? You want to be free, surely?”
He studied me in turn, the black face expressionless. Then: “You got niggers in England … that so?”
“Yes, a few – and they’re all free. So are the niggers in our Empire, in Africa and the West Indies. No one owns ’em, or can make ’em do what they don’t like, or sell ’em down the river. Wouldn’t you like that?”
He sat, apparently thinking, though you couldn’t be sure with that face. At last he said: “Yo’ English niggers … how many on ’em got a fine coat, like this heah?” He ran a finger the size of a truncheon down his lapel. “How many on ’em got a silver timepiece an’ chain? How many got five dollahs in they pocket?”
“Why, Joe, you could have all those things, in Canada, say – and be free into the bargain! You could do whatever you liked, go wherever you liked, be your own master.”
He digested this, staring at the floor, and shrugged his huge shoulders. “Ah guess so,” says he slowly. “An’ Ah cud be tret like black trash whenevah Ah liked, an’ git out the way, nigger, whenevah Ah liked, an’ go hungry whenevah Ah liked, an’ beg mah bread’n go to jail whenevah Ah liked.” He raised his bullet head and stared at me; it was like looking into the eyes of an ape in a cage. “Don’ have none o’ that wi’ Mass’ Charles. Ah his slave, but he treat me like a man – an’ folks r’specks me, cuz Ah’s his nigger. Don’ git tret like no black trash, nossuh! Git good vittles, git good clo’es like these yeah …” He closed his eyes and gave a great growling sigh. “An’ Ah gits to hump his li’l white lady whenevah Mass’ Charles say so … oh, but she is prime white meat! None o’ yo’ free niggers gits that kin’ o’ pleasurin’, Ah reckon.”
I was shocked – not that I’m a prude, you understand, but because I knew the physical loathing that Annette had for black skin; why, at Greystones, any wench who’d had the misfortune to touch her by accident, hadn’t been able to walk for a week. The thought of her with this human gorilla … well, my little French aristo was paying a price for being the richest woman in Louisiana, wasn’t she just?
“You ask yo’ Afriky niggers whether they’d ruther be free – or Joe,” growls he, showing his gleaming teeth in a great wolfish grin. “See whut they tell yuh.”
“Ah, but they don’t know any better, Joe – you do. They’re savages, but you’re … well, civilised, I mean. I’ve seen how you carry yourself with Crixus – and with Atropos, too. You’re not a common nigger … why, I’ll bet you can read, can’t you?”
He stuck out a sullen lip. “Some. Writin’ an’ figurin’, though … they kinda tough.”
It’s not often you find yourself conversing with a caveman, and I was becoming interested. “But see here, if you can read a little, you can learn to write and … ah, figure, fast enough. Why, man, you could make something of yourself – and if you were free, you could buy all the white tarts you wanted. Mandeville’s nothing special, I can tell you! You’re a fool, Joe … but you needn’t go on being one, you know. You can be something better than a slave –”
“Ah cain’t be white!” growls he, shaking his head, and then he frowned, and a wicked glitter came into his eyes. “Say, Mistuh Comber … you tryin’ talk yo’self out o’ this? You tryin’ to fool this po’ coloured boy?”
“No such thing! Why, if I wanted to be ‘out of this’, as you call it, don’t think that you could stop me. I’m here because I’m being paid – ah, there you have it! I’m free, you see, but you’re not, because you’re content to be bound to that great fat slug, when you could be …” And then I caught the gleam in his eyes, and I stared for a moment, and then lay back on the bed, looking at the ceiling, anger giving way to amusement.
“Joe,” says I at length, “you are a smart black son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you, though?” I began to laugh, and so did he, the great black face split in a melon grin, his shoulders heaving. “Oh, you poor coloured boy! So writing and figuring are tough, are they?”
“Some,” chuckles he. “Cain’t hol’ de pencil in mah big black fingers, nohow!”
“Oh, leave off! Begging your bread, forsooth, and mumbling like a fieldhand! What’s the capital of Portugal?”
“Oh, lemme see … Ah gotta study dat! Tain’t Madrid, nossuh, ’r Gay Paree … um, Lisbon, maybe? Say, though, which o’ yo’ li’l ole English kings got hisself mu’dered in de Tower o’ Lunnon in fo’teen-eighty-three?”
“Don’t be daft! Oh, very well – which one?”
“Edwa’d Fift’. He was jes’ twelve yeahs old, an’ his mammy wuz a lady called ’Liz’beth Woodville.” He sat there chortling, the jolly darkie to the life, damn him.
“Yes … I should have remembered, shouldn’t I, that anyone who can spy inside the Underground Railroad, and fool Crixus, knows more than picking cotton … Went to school along with Atropos – Master Charles – did you?”
“Niggers don’ ’tend school. No, we had the same gov’ness, in the same nussery. Mass’ Charles’s papa was an … exper’mental gen’leman, so he raised us the same.” He was smiling still, but the black eyes were expressionless. “Wanted to see how it came out, Ah guess.”
“But see here … this is all the more reason why my question’s good, Joe – why, being raised like that, and educated, and knowing what you do … why, in God’s name, d’ye stay a slave? Don’t you want to be free, for heaven’s sake?”
Just for a second he avoided my eye, then his chin came up. “Ma answer’s good, too, Comber.” It came out in his harsh bass growl. “Ah don’ need to be free. Ah serve Mass’ Charles as a friend – his best friend, like he told you. He trusts me, Ah trust him. The way he goes, Ah go. He wants me to work for the Kuklos, Ah work for the Kuklos. He wants me to keep a hold on B. M. Comber an’ make sho’ he earn that fi’ thousan’ dollahs …” The smile on the primitive face was a knowing glimmer now, and not pleasant. “… Ah keep a hold. Oh, maybe take a li’l rise out o’ him, fo’ fun, an’ so we both know whut’s whut, but that don’ signify a bit. You stay held, Comber, all the way, make no mistake ’bout that!”
So there … Comber. Evidently my question anent slavery had annoyed him, and he was reminding me “whut” was “whut”.
“Well, Joe, all I can say is that Master Charles is fortunate in the loyalty of his friend.”
“That’s right!”
“And tell me … when he says ‘Hump my wife, for my entertainment’, do you do it as a friend – or as an obedient slave?”
I’ll swear his eyes glowed, and he wasn’t a pretty sight. Then he smiled, and was even less pretty.
“It ain’t no ha’dship –’speshly ’cos she don’t like it. She don’ like it at all. She jus’ cain’t ’bide niggers, it seems.”
“Ah, well, there’s no pleasing some people, is there? Happy little menage you must all have together. Fortunately, however, she can abide white men … and I rather think she’s expecting me.” I swung my legs off the bed, and he seemed to flow upright like a genie towering out of a bottle. I feigned surprise. “Don’t worry, Joe, I shan’t run away.”
He stood glaring down at me, undecided, and I wondered if he was going to assert his guardianship. But he had style, did Joe, in his own way, for after a long moment he stood aside, giving me his nastiest grin, and unlatched the door. “Sho’ … you go right ahead, like an o-bedient free white man … yo’ right welcome to the nigger’s leavin’s. An’ Ah know you won’t run, ’cos o’ that fi’ thousan’ dollahs … an’ this.” He pulled back his coat to show the pistol butt. “You go along, now … an’ enjoy yo’self, ye heah?”
“Why, Joe, Ah b’lieve Ah sho’ly will,” says I. “Tell ye sumpn else, Joe … so will she.” I winked at him. “You think ’bout that.”
And she did, so far as I could judge, which was never easy with La Mandeville, quite the most unsociable mistress I ever mounted. Most women I’ve known have exchanged seductive pleasantries beforehand, squealed and gasped during performance, and chatted comfortably afterwards (except my Elspeth, who gasses throughout, bless her). Not Annette; when I accosted her that night in her cabin, it was Greystones all over again – cold, clawing passion, and then sullen silence until she fell asleep. However, when the train bell woke her (at Philadelphia, if memory serves) she went to work like Poppaea on honeymoon, which I took as a compliment, before resuming her impersonation of a Trappist nun, if there is such a thing. It was at this stage that I succeeded in getting a snatch of conversation out of her, and most interesting it proved to be.
In the interval between rounds, so to speak, while she lay cold and quiet beside me in the cramped berth, I’d been reflecting on Joe’s capricious behaviour. For a while there we’d got on rather well, he’d taken me in by playing the darkie simpleton, teased me cheerily – and then all unintended I’d touched him on the raw, probably by my impatient concern for his enslaved condition (Christ, you can’t do right for doing wrong with these folk). So he’d turned ornery on me, been redoubled and set down, and from that moment we were sworn enemies. Well, the hell with him. At all events, in trying to coax some chat out of my tiny paramour after our final gallop, in which she’d drawn blood in two places, I mentioned Joe’s name – partly out of curiosity, but mostly out of malice, I confess – and she started like a galvanised frog.
“What of him? What did he say?”
Aha, thinks I, guilty conscience; capital. “Oh, this and that … he’s an odd chap. No fool, for all he looks like a backward baboon. Knows more English history than I do, anyway …”
“What? History, you say?” She was wide awake now. “What does that black beast know about it?”
“The name of Edward the Fifth’s mother, for one thing. Quite extraordinary … aye, a most educated nigger, smart as paint. I’m surprised your husband trusts him.”
She was silent a moment. “Why should he not?”
“Well, Joe’s a slave, ain’t he – and here he is, heading for the free states, so what’s to hinder him lighting out for Canada? I would, if I were he – but when I put it to him, he said your husband was his best friend, and he’d not dream of running from him … you know, loyalty, that sort o’ thing …”
“Loyalty! What do animals know of loyalty?”
“Oh, I dunno … dogs are loyal, they say, ’tho I never found ’em so. My Aunt Paget had one of those damned poodles, when I was a kid – stank, but she swore it was faithful. Took a great lump out of my arse when I tried to sick it on to some hens –”
“What else did the brute tell you?”
“Oh, nothing.” I yawned, and when she had turned away and settled down, I gave a drowsy chuckle. “Nothing much, leastways … oh, yes, I gather Joe likes white women … unwilling ones, for choice.”
She lay dead still – so still, I could sense the sudden tension of her muscles. Good luck to you, Joe, thinks I, if ever Atropos kicks the bucket unexpected and you become the widow’s property. I waited for her fury to vent itself in shrieks of rage or fine French oaths, but nothing came for at least a minute, and then the most astonishing thing happened. She turned slowly towards me in the berth, and her hand stole across, searching for mine, and to my amazement she nuzzled her head on to my shoulder. Her tiny body was trembling, and damned if I didn’t feel wetness trickling on my skin – she was absolutely weeping, with a soft murmuring wail that I could hardly hear until it turned into a faint broken whisper: “Oh-h-h … hold … me …”
I couldn’t credit it – Annette Mandeville, the spurred succubus, hard as a diamond and vicious with it, whimpering like a lost child. I slipped an arm about her, marvelling, and she clung closer still, pushing her blubbering face under my chin. “Oh-h-h, hold me … close … close … oh, please …” Well, naked tits never appeal to me in vain, so I drew her over me with her small rump in my one hand, for she was the veriest fly-weight. She lay there, keening away, bedewing my manly bosom with her tears. Baffling, I found it, but rather jolly; I disengaged the clasp of her fingers so that I could work at her poonts with one hand and her stern with t’other.
“No … no … not that,” sobs she. “Only … comfort me … oh, please … hold me close!” She was crying hard now, with a great yearning misery. “Please … comfort me!”
So I did, stroking her hair and petting her in a bewildered fashion, asking myself if I’d ever understand women. She clung like a clam, and after a while her weeping subsided into little sniffs and sighs, and I guessed she was dropping off to sleep. So then I cheered her up properly.
a King’s African Rifles.