“Well, good luck to ’em!”
He shook his head. “No, sir. Bad luck – the worst. Right now, I doubt if one American in five has even heard of John Brown – but let him make his crazy raid, and swing for it, and the whole world will hear of him.” He smiled with no mirth at all. “And what will the world say? That America, the land of liberty, has hanged an honest, upright, God-fearing Christian whose only crime was that he wanted to make men free. A man who could stand for the archetype that made this country – why, he could pose for Uncle Sam this minute. And we’ll have put him to death – the damnedest martyr since Joan of Arc! And there will be such an outcry, colonel, such a blaze of hatred throughout the North, such a fury against slavery and its practitioners … and there is your certain war ready-made, awaiting the first shot.”
He hadn’t raised his voice, but just for a moment the cool nil admirari air had slipped a trifle. He smiled almost in apology.
“There are many ‘ifs’ along the way, to be sure. I’m envisaging the worst. Brown may not ride into Virginia this summer; his own incompetence and indecision, encouraged by you, may delay him long enough – if he doesn’t move before fall, I doubt if he ever will. He can’t hold his followers together forever, living on hope deferred, and fretting to get home for the harvest.”
He rose from his chair and went to a cupboard by the wall; his voice came to me out of the shadow beyond the pool of light cast by the desk-lamps.
“If you can keep him bamboozled for a couple of months, why, all’s well. But if you can’t, and if he does light out for Dixie with his guns on, and comes to grief … then for the sake of this country, and for tens of thousands of American lives, he must not survive for trial and martyrdom at the hands of the U.S. Government. No … John Brown must die somewhere along the road … oh, bully for us! – I knew there was another bottle!”
You will wonder, no doubt, why I’d remained cool and complacent during the conversation I’ve just described. I’ll tell you. Seward, in making it plain that if I didn’t toe the line he’d blacken my fair name to our sovereign lady and her ministers, had used a phrase which had quite altered my view of things. “At no peril to himself”, meaning me. You see, what had been proposed by Crixus and Atropos was that I should be one of a whooping gang of cutthroats invading the South to storm arsenals and stir up bloody insurrection – the sort of thing I bar altogether, as you know. The proposal made by the Senator and Pinkerton, hinted at by Seward, and illuminated by Messervy, was quite the opposite: I was to restrain, hinder, and prevent anything of the kind, and while the prospect of passing several weeks in the company of a pack of hayseeds, showing ’em how to shoulder arms and dress by the right, and discussing strategy with their loose screw of a commander, was not a specially attractive one – well, I’d known a lot worse. It would be hard lying and rotten grub, no doubt, but I’d be earning the gratitude of the next President, for what that was worth, and adding to my credit at home when the story reached the right ears – as I’d make dam’ sure it did. Above all, it would be safe – “at no peril to himself”. Not that I’d trust a politician’s word for the weather, you understand, but Messervy’s information had borne him out … until he’d made it plain that if the worst befell, I’d be expected to put Mr John Brown quietly to rest.
Fat chance. A scoundrel I may be, but I ain’t an assassin, and you will comb my memoirs in vain for mention of Flashy as First Murderer. Oh, I’ve put away more than I can count, in the line of duty, from stark necessity, and once or twice for spite – de Gautet springs to mind, and the pandy I shot at Meerut – but they deserved it. Anyway, I don’t kill chaps I don’t know.
But it wouldn’t have been tactful – indeed, it would have been downright dangerous – to say this to Messervy, so I received his disgusting proposal with the stern, shrewd look of a Palmerston roughneck who took back-shooting in his stride. I may even have growled softly. (And, d’ye know, I accepted it all the more calmly because I didn’t believe for a moment that there was any chance of the matter arising: Messervy and Seward and the others might regard Brown as a dangerous bogyman, but from all I’d heard he was a mere bushwhacker whose talk of invasion and rebellion was so much wind. Oh, I’d do my best to humbug him, but my guess was he’d stay quiet enough without my help. As for starting a war, it was too far-fetched altogether. Well, I was wrong, but I can’t reproach myself, even now; it was damned far-fetched.)
Anyway, I nodded grimly as he brought his bottle to the desk.
“You take the point?” says he, looking keen.
“Quite so,” says I. “Which reminds me, the sooner I have a gun in my pocket the better. Oh, and a decent knife – and a map of Harper’s Ferry, wherever it is.”
“Colonel,” says he, “it’s a pleasure doing business with you. Excuse me.” He went out humming and I punished the Hungarian until he returned with a neat little Tranter six-shooter, a stiletto in a metal sheath, and a map which he insisted I study on the spot and leave behind.
“There’s the Ferry – just inside Virginia, and only fifty miles from Washington.” He came to my elbow. “The odds are you’ll never see the place, but if Brown does go for it, and you have to do … what needs to be done, then your best course afterwards will be to make tracks for Washington and your ministry. The militia will round up the rest of Brown’s gang, and that’ll be that. You’ll have no difficulty with Lord Lyons, by the way; he’ll be given notice of your coming, with an assurance from a high quarter that you have rendered a signal service to the United States in a domestic matter, and we are most grateful. We shan’t tell him, officially, what the service was, and I’m sure he won’t ask, officially. But I’m sure he’ll speed your journey home.”
He folded the map. “If, as is most likely, John Brown spends a quiet summer, and nothing untoward takes place … well, when he starts to disband his followers, you can desert him at your leisure. Again, Lord Lyons will be advised to expect you, with our expressions of gratitude, et cetera. Very good?”
“I don’t know Lyons,” says I, “but I’ll bet he’s nobody’s fool.”
“He isn’t,” says Messervy. “Which is why, whatever course you have to take, all will be well.” He took another turn at his moustache. “It’s in a dam’ good cause, colonel. You know it, we know it, and Lord Lyons will know it.”
I thought it wouldn’t hurt to play my part a little. “You Yankees have a blasted cheek, you know. Ah, well … I say, though, when I’m out in the bush, with Brown, how do I –”
“Send messages to me? You don’t – too dangerous. Brown and his people might get wise to you; so might the Kuklos. Just because we’ve got three of their men in the Tombs doesn’t mean there won’t be others watching you – they’ll certainly have people keeping track of Brown himself. If either side suspected you were secret service …” He gave me a knowing look. “Quite so. Anyway, the fewer of our people who know we’ve got an agent with Brown – and a Briton, at that – the better. We’ll be keeping an eye on things, though, and if need arises, I’ll get word to you.”
He took a small purse from a drawer and tossed it over. “That’s $50 to keep in your money belt … if Joe should wonder how you came by it, Mrs Mandeville gave it you.” He frowned. “That’s another thing. Brown will welcome you with open arms –”
“Just suppose he doesn’t – what then?”
“He will, no question; you’re a gift from God. The point is, he’ll also welcome Joe; he’s all for black recruits. Well, I don’t have to remind you that Joe is a Kuklos man, and a good one.”
“He’s a damned rum bird,” says I. “Oh, I know he and Atropos have been chums in the nursery and all that tommy-rot – but hang it, he ought to be all for Brown and black freedom, surely? I don’t fathom him at all.”
“Some of these darkies who belong to the old Southern families are mighty loyal. They think of themselves as kin to their owners – and many of ’em are, though I doubt if Joe is. But all we know of him confirms that
he’s staunch to Atropos.” He shrugged. “Maybe he reckons he’s better off slave than free, living high in the tents of wickedness rather than being a doorkeeper in the house of a God who’d expect him to earn his own living.” And having a free run at massa’s white lady from time to time, thinks I. “Anyway, beware of him,” says Messervy. “He’ll be watching you like a hungry lynx.” He glanced at his timepiece. “It’s half after eight, and Mrs Comber will be waiting. She hasn’t been told your real name, by the way. No need for her to know that.”
The building seemed to be deserted, and we went down the echoing stone stairs to a room on the ground floor where Annette was waiting, with a nondescript civilian who faded from view at a nod from Messervy. She seemed none the worse for her swooning fit of the morning, and didn’t give me a glance, let alone a word, as Messervy conducted us to a closed carriage in the back court, where he handed her in, bowed gallantly over her hand, and gave me his imperturbable nod. “Joe won’t be given Crixus’s message for another hour. By that time you’ll be having a quiet supper after a day’s sauntering and shopping on Broadway.” He indicated a couple of band-boxes on the floor of the cab. “Your purchases, Mrs Comber. One of our lady operators chose them, with regard to your taste, I hope.” The Yankee secret service evidently left nothing to chance. “Good luck, Comber … and,” he added quietly, “if need be, good hunting.” Cool as a trout, rot him, doffing his tile and knuckling his lip-whisker as we drove away.
Annette sat like a frozen doll for several minutes, and then to my astonishment broke out in a low hard voice: “You saved my life this morning. When that creature fired on us. My … my courage failed me. But for you, I would have been killed. I … thank you.”
I didn’t twig for a second, and then it dawned that she must have quite misunderstood why I’d seized hold of her when the lead started flying. Oh, well, all to the good. I waved an airy hand.
“My dear, ’twas nothing! I wasn’t going to be a widower so soon, was I?” I slipped an arm about her and kissed her soundly. “Why, it’s I should thank you, for steering me clear of those Kuklos villains. But, I say, you took me in altogether, you clever little puss – never a word that you were working for Brother Jonathanb all the time! And you a Southern Creole lady, too! How’s that come about, eh?”
“If you knew what it was to be married to that devil, you would not need to ask!” But she said it automatically, her mind still fixed on that fateful moment at Madam Celeste’s, sitting stiff as a board while I munched at her cheek. “I never shot at anyone before! I … I was in terror, not thinking what I was about or –”
“Nonsense, girl!” says I, squeezing her udders. “Why, you blazed away like a drunk dragoon – winged him, I shouldn’t wonder! Gave him a nasty start, leastways. But here we are, safe and sound, so … take that, you little peach!”
But it was like kissing a dead flounder. “I might have killed him!” she whispered, staring ahead. “It would have been murder – mortal sin! Thou shalt not kill! Oh, let me be, damn you!” She beat at my hands, trying to struggle free. “Have you no feeling? Can you think of nothing but … but your filthy lust – oh, when I might have had that upon my soul?”
I was so shocked I absolutely let them go. “Upon your what? Heavens, woman, what the dooce are you talking about?”
“I tried to kill him!” She turned on me, eyes blazing. “I had murder in my heart, can’t you understand?”
“And he didn’t, I suppose? My stars, he might have done for both of us! What the devil’s the matter?” I stared at the pale little face, so tight and drawn. “Ain’t you well? It’s all past and done with, we never took a scratch! Ah, but you’re still shaken – it’s the shock, to be sure! Come here, you goose, and I’ll put it right!”
“I might have killed him! I wanted to kill him!” She closed her eyes, and her voice was almost too faint to hear: “I would have been damned!”
Now, I’ve seen folk take all kinds of fits after a shooting scrape, or a battle, or a near shave, and the shock can be hours in coming on, but this was a new one altogether. Her eyes when she opened them were full of frightened tears, staring as though she were in a trance. “Damned,” she whispered. “Damned eternally!”
They don’t usually say that sort of thing until they’re at death’s door, and she was as fit as a flea. I wondered how to bring her out of it – she was too frail to slap, petting her hadn’t answered, and I couldn’t very well ravish her in a carriage on Broadway. So I tried common sense.
“Well, you didn’t kill him, and you ain’t going to be damned, so there’s no harm done, d’ye see? I know – we’ll try putting your head between your knees –”
“In my heart I murdered him!” cries she.
“Well, it didn’t do him a penn’orth of harm! Heaven’s alive, you never came near hitting the fellow –”
“The will was the deed! I would have killed him – I, who never thought to take life!”
This was too much, so I took a stern line. “Oh, gammon and greens! What about those black wenches of mine at Greystones? You had them half-killed – ’twasn’t your fault they didn’t kick the bucket, and you never thought twice about damnation! Anyway, who says there’s a Hell? Twaddle, if you ask me!”
It seemed to reach her, and she stared at me as though I were mad. “This was a human being!” cries she. “If I had killed him …” She closed her eyes again, and began to tremble, turning away from me. I waited for the waterworks, but they didn’t come, and I saw there was nothing for it but the religious tack.
“Now, see here, Annette, you didn’t kill him, and if it’s the wish to kill that’s troubling you, well, you’re a Papist, ain’t you? So if you tool along to the nearest priest, he’ll set your conscience right in no time.” I thought of my little leprechaun in Baltimore, and dear drunken old Fennessy of the Eighth Hussars. “If he’s got half as much sense as the padres I know, he’ll tell you that self-defence ain’t murder in the first place. And if you want to thank me,” I added, “you’ll do it best by recollecting that in a little while we’ll be seeing Black Joe, and we can’t have him wondering why you’re looking like Marley’s ghost!” I patted her hand. “So draw breath, there’s a girl, and forget about damnation until you see old Father McGoogle in the morning and get your extreme unction or whatever it is. The worst is past, and if you play up now – well, you’ll be doing your fat swine of a husband a dam’ bad turn, what?”
Possibly because of my healing discourse, possibly because we’d pulled up at the Astor House, she suddenly snapped her head erect, white as a sheet but compos mentis, and began to behave normally, but mute. As I followed her up to our suit, and presently down again to the dining-room, I found myself wondering if she was quite sane – and to this day I ain’t sure. I’d known her, by turns, a vicious tyrant, a voracious bedmate, a superb actress, a forlorn child, a gun-toting secret agent, and now, of all things, a penitent in terror of hell-fire because she might have shot a chap but hadn’t. Well, as they say in the North Country, there’s nowt so funny as folk – but I’d never have credited Annette Mandeville with a conscience. Nursery education, no doubt; God, these governesses have a lot to answer for.
She said not a word at supper – which she attacked with a fine appetite, I may say – but when we returned to our room and found Joe waiting, she was quite her old imperious self, and talked according. He was in a fine excitement, thrusting Crixus’s telegraph message into her hand; it was in code, and at length, but its purport was precisely what everyone, from Atropos to Pinkerton, had predicted: Joe was commended for his zeal in running me down, and helping me to see the light – not that Crixus had ever doubted I would come round in the end, even after I’d lit out, for he knew my devotion to the cause, and that reflection would guide me to a just and righteous conclusion, God bless me a thousand times. (I’d been doubtful, as you know, whether Crixus would swallow the tale that I’d been persuaded to change my mind, but Atropos had been proved right: he believed i
t because he wanted to, and it fulfilled his fondest hopes.) Finally, Joe was to lose no time in conducting me to Concord and our Good and Trusty Champion, that the Lord’s Will might be accomplished and His Banners go forward in Freedom’s Cause. Amen.
“We got no time to lose,” says Joe, all eagerness. “They’s a train leavin’ fo’ Boston fust thing, an’ –”
“You’ll take a later train, and reach Boston after dark,” snaps Annette. “You’ll stay the night there, and keep under cover, going on to Concord next day – and again, you’ll arrive after dark.” Joe would have protested, but she shut him up. “Do you think Sanborn wants you to be seen entering his house in broad daylight? Don’t you know he’s watched by government operators, you black dolt?”
“They don’ know us –”
“They’ll know you even less if they never see you! Oh, why did they entrust this business to a clod like you! Get out, and fetch me a train schedule – not now, in the morning!”
He could gladly have broken her in two, but all he did was mutter that he hadn’t seen Hermes’s men about the hotel, and did she know where they were? She told him curtly to mind his own business and let them mind theirs, and he left with a venomous glare – but no suspicion, I’ll swear, that there was anything amiss; her tongue-lashing performance had been altogether in her best style.
So then it was bedtime, and since I didn’t expect much carnal amusement chez Brown, I was determined to make the most of it. After Annette’s earlier vapourings, I half expected reluctance, but she was all for it, and if her conscience was still troubling her, she kept it on a tight rein, addressing heaven only in secular terms when amorous frenzy got the better of her. That interested me, for her usual form was to gallop in grim silence; more astonishing still, she was ready to talk afterwards, briefly enough at first, but little by little at greater length, until we were conversing almost civilly. Whether it was gratitude for having her life saved (as she thought, heaven help her), or I was in prime fettle, or she’d made her peace with God, or was just getting used to me, I can’t tell, but out came Annette Mandeville, Her Life and Times, and diverting stuff it was.
The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection Page 314
