I'm not slow on the uptake, even with a bearded baboon nearly seven feet tall roaring at my face from a few inches away, and what I understood from this extraordinary outburst simply took my breath away. I'm all for family, you understand, but I doubt if I have the dynastic instinct as strong as all that.
"You are such a man," says he, and suddenly he edged his horse even closer, and crushed my arm in his enormous paw. "You can get sons—you have done so," he croaked, his livid face beside mine. "You have a child in England—and Sara has proved you also. When the war is over, you will leave here, and go to England, far away. No one will ever know—but you and I!"
I found my voice, and said something about Valla.
"She is my daughter," says he, and his voice rasped like an iron file. "She knows what this means to the house of Pencherjevsky. She obeys." And for the first time he smiled, a dreadful, crooked grin through his beard. "From what Sara tells me, she may be happy to obey. As for you, it will be no hardship. And"—he took me by the shoulder, rocking me in the saddle—"it may be worth much or little, but hereafter you may call Pencherjevsky from the other side of hell, and he will come to your side!"
If it was an extraordinary proposition, I won't pretend it was unwelcome. Spooky, of course, but immensely flattering, after all. And you only had to imagine, for a split second, what Pencherjevsky's reaction would have been to a polite refusal—I say no more.
"It will be a boy," says he, "I know it. And if by chance it is a girl—then she shall have a man for a husband, if I have to rake the world for him!"
An impetuous fellow, this Count—it never occurred to him that it might be his little Valla who was barren, and not her husband. However, that was not for me to say, so I kept mum, and left all the arrangements to papa.
He did it perfectly, no doubt with the connivance of that lustful slut Sara—there was a lady who took pleasure in her experimental work, all right. I sallied forth at midnight, and feeling not unlike a prize bull at the agricultural show—"'ere 'e is, ladies'n' gennelmen, Flashman Buttercup the Twenty-first of Horny Bottom Farm"—tip-toed out of the corridor where my room and East's lay, and set off on the long promenade to the other wing. It was ghostly in that creaky old house, with not a soul about, but true love spurred me on, and sure enough Valla's door was ajar, with a little sliver of light lancing across the passage floor.
I popped in—and she was kneeling beside the bed, praying! I didn't know whether it was for forgiveness for the sin of adultery, or for the sin to be committed successfully, and I didn't stop to ask. There's no point in talking, or hanging back shuffling on these occasions, and saying: "Ah … well, shall we …?" On the other hand, one doesn't go roaring and ramping at respectable married women, so I stooped and kissed her very gently, drew off her nightdress, and eased her on to the bed. I felt her plump little body trembling under my hands, so I kissed her long and carefully, fondling her and murmuring nonsense in her ear, and then her arms went round my neck.
Frankly, I think the Count had underestimated her horse artillery husband, for she had learned a great deal from somewhere. I'd been prepared for her to be reluctant, or to need some jollying along, but she entered into the spirit of the thing like a tipsy widow, and it was from no sense of duty or giving the house of Pencherjevsky its money's worth that I stayed until past four o'clock. I do love a bouncy blonde with a hearty appetite, and when I finally crawled back to my own chilly bed it was with the sense of an honest night's work well done.
But if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well, and since there seemed to be an unspoken understanding that the treatment should be continued, I made frequent forays to Valla's room in the ensuing nights. And so far as I'm a judge, the little baggage revelled in being a dutiful daughter—they're a damned randy lot, these Russians. Something to do with the cold weather; I dare say. A curious thing was, I soon began to feel as though we were truly married, and no doubt this had something to do with the purpose behind our night games; yet during the day we remained on the same easy terms as before, and if Sara grudged her niece the pleasuring she was getting, she never let on. Pencherjevsky said nothing, but from time to time I would catch him eyeing us with sly satisfaction, fingering his beard at the table head.
East suspected something, I'm certain. His manner to me became nervous, and he avoided the family's society even more than before, but he didn't dare say anything. Too scared of finding his suspicions well grounded, I suppose.
The only fly in the ointment that I could see was the possibility that during the months ahead it might become apparent that I was labouring in vain; however, I was ready to face Pencherjevsky's disappointment when and if it came. Valla's yawns at breakfast were proof that I was doing my share manfully. And then something happened which made the whole speculation pointless.
From time to time in the first winter months there had been other guests at the big house of Starotorsk: military ones. The nearest township—where I'd encountered Ignatieff—was an important army headquarters, a sort of staging post for the Crimea, but as there was no decent accommodation in the place, the more important wayfarers were in the habit of putting up with Pencherjevsky. On these occasions East and I were politely kept in our rooms, with a Cossack posted in the corridor, and our meals sent up on trays, but we saw some of the comings and goings from our windows—Liprandi, for example, and a grandee with a large military staff whom East said was Prince Worontzoff. After one such visit it was obvious to both of us that some sort of military conference had been held in the Count's library—you could smell it the next morning, and there was a big map easel leaned up in a corner that hadn't been there before.
"We should keep our eyes and ears open," says East to me later. "Do you know—if we could have got out of our rooms when that confabulation was going on, we might have crept into the old gallery up yonder, and heard all kinds of useful intelligence."
This was a sort of screened minstrel's gallery that overlooked the library; you got into it by a little door off the main landing. But it was no welcome suggestion to me, as you can guess, who am all for lying low.
"Rot!" says I. "We ain't spies—and if we were, and the whole Russian general staff were to blab their plans within earshot, what could we do with the knowledge?"
"Who knows-" says he, looking keen. "That Cossack they put to watch our doors sleeps half the night—did you know? Reeking of brandy. We could get out, I daresay—I tell you what, Flashman, if another high ranker comes this way,, I think we're bound to try and overhear him, if we can. It's our duty."
"Duty?" says I, alarmed. "Duty to eavesdrop? What kind of company have you been keeping lately? I can't see Raglan, or any other honourable man, thinking much of that sort of conduct." The high moral line, you see; deuced handy sometimes. "Why, we're as good as guests in this place."
"We're prisoners," says he, "and we haven't given any parole. Any information we can come by is a legitimate prize of war—and if we heard anything big enough it might even be worth trying a run for it. We're not that far from the Crimea."
This was appalling. Wherever you go, however snug you may have made yourself, there is always one of these duty-bound, energetic bastards trying to make trouble. The thought of spying on the Russians, and then lighting out in the snow some dark night, with Pencherjevsky's Cossacks after us—my imagination was in full flight in a trice, while Scud stood chewing his lip, muttering his thoughtful lunacies. I didn't argue—it would have looked bad, as though I weren't as eager to strike a blow for Britannia as he was. And it wasn't even worth talking about—we weren't going to get the chance to spy, or escape, or do anything foolish. I'd have given a thousand to one on that—which, as it turned out, would have been very unwise odds to offer.
However, after that small discussion the weeks had slipped by without any other important Russians visiting the place, and then came my diversion with Valla, and East's ridiculous daydream went clean out of my mind. And then, about ten days after I had started gallopin
g her, a couple of Ruski staff captains jingled into the courtyard one morning, to be followed by a large horse-sled, and shortly afterwards comes the Count's major-domo to East and me, presenting his apologies, and chivvying us off to our rooms.
We took the precaution of muffling the hidden speaking-tube, and kept a good watch from East's window that day. We saw more sleds arrive, and from the distant hum of voices in the house and the sound of tramping on the stairs we realized there must be a fair-sized party in the place. East was all excited, but what really stirred him was when a sled arrived late in the afternoon, and Pencherjevsky himself was in the yard to meet it—attired as we'd never seen him before, in full dress uniform.
"This is important," says East, his eyes alight. "Depend upon it, that's some really big wig. Gad! I'd give a year's pay to hear what passes below tonight." He was white with excitement. "Flashman, I'm going to have a shot at it!"
"You're crazy," says I. "With a Cossack mooching about the passage all night? You say he sleeps—he can wake up, too, can't he?"
"I'll chance that," says he, and for all I could try—appeals to his common sense, to his position as a guest, to his honour as an officer (I think I even invoked Arnold and religion) he remained set.
"Well, don't count on me," I told him. "It ain't worth it—they won't be saying anything worth a damn—it ain't safe, and by thunder, it's downright ungentlemanly. So now!"
To my surprise, he patted my arm. "I respect what you say, old fellow," says he. "But—I can't help it. I may be wrong, but I see my duty differently, don't you understand? I know it's St Paul's to a pub it'll be a fool's errand, but—well, you never know. And I'm not like you—I haven't done much for Queen and country. I'd like to try."
Well, there was nothing for it but to get my head under the bed-clothes that night and snore like hell, to let the world know that Flashy wasn't up to mischief. Neither, it transpired, was the bold East: he reported next day that the Cossack had stayed awake all night, so his expedition had to be called off. But the sleds stayed there all day, and the next, and they kept us cooped up all the time, and the Cossack remained vigilant, to East's mounting frenzy.
"Three days!" says he. "Who can it be, down there? I tell you, it must be some important meeting! I know it! And we have to sit here, like mice in a cage, when if we could only get out for an hour, we might find out something that would—oh, I don't know, but it might be vital to the war! It's enough to drive a chap out of his wits!"
"It already has," says I. "You haven't been shut up like this before, have you? Well, I've been a prisoner more times than I care to think of, and I can tell you, after a while you don't reason straight any longer. That's what's wrong with you. Also, you're tired out; get to sleep tonight, and forget this nonsense."
He fretted away, though, and I was almost out of patience with him by dinner-time, when who should come up with the servants bearing dinner, but Valla. She had just dropped in to see us, she said,- and was very bright, and played a three-handed card game with us, which was a trying one for East, I could see. He was jumpy as a cat with her at the best of times, blushing and falling over his feet, and now in addition he was fighting to keep from asking her what was afoot downstairs, and who the visitors were. She prattled on, till about nine, and then took her leave, and as I held the door for her she gave me a glance and a turn of her pretty blonde head that said, as plain as words: "It's been three nights now. Well?" I went back to my room next door, full of wicked notions, and leaving East yawning and brooding.
If I hadn't been such a lustful brute, no doubt prudence would have kept me abed that night. But at midnight I was peeping out, and there was the Cossack, slumped on… his stool, head back and mouth open, reeking like Davis's cellar. Valla's work, thinks I, the charming little wretch. I slipped past him, and he never even stirred, and I padded out of the pool of lamplight round him and reached the big landing.
All was still up here, but there was a dim light down in the hall, and through the banisters I could see two whitetunicked and helmeted sentries on the big double doors of the library, with their sabres drawn, and an orderly officer pacing idly about smoking a cigarette. It struck me that it wasn't safe to be gallivanting about this house in the dark—they might think I was on the East tack, spying—so I flitted on, and two minutes later was stallioning away like billy-o with my modest flower of the steppes—by jingo, she was in a fine state of passion, I remember. We had one violent bout, and then some warm wine from her little spirit lamp, and talked softly and dozed and played, and then went to it again, very slowly and wonderfully, and I can see that lovely white shape in the flickering light even now, and smell the perfume of that silver hair, and—dear me, how we old soldiers do run on.
"You must not linger too long, sweetheart," says she, at last. "Even drunk Cossacks don't sleep forever," and giggled, nibbling at my chin. So I kissed her a long goodnight, with endearments, resumed my nightshirt, squeezed her bouncers again for luck, and toddled out into the cold, along her corridor, down the little stairs to the landing—and froze in icy shock against the wall on the second step, my heart going like a hammer.
There was someone on the landing. I could hear him, and then see him by the dim light from the far corridor where my Count's room lay. He was crouched by the archway, listening, a man in a nightshirt, like myself. With a wrenching inward sigh, I realized that it could only be East.
The fool had stayed awake, seen the Cossack asleep, and was now bent on his crack-brained patriotic mischief. I hissed very gently, had the satisfaction of seeing him try to leap through the wall, and then was at his side, shushing him for all I was worth. He seized me, gurgling. "You! Flashman!" He let out a shuddering breath. "What -? You've been … why didn't you tell me?" I wondered what the blazes he meant, until he whispered fiercely: "Good man! Have you heard anything? Are they still there?"
The madman seemed to think I'd been on his eaves-dropping lay. Well, at least I'd be spared recriminations for fornicating with his adored object. I shook my head, he bit his lip, and then the maniac breathed in my ear: "Come, then, quickly! Into the gallery—they're still down there!" And while I was peeping, terrified, into the dimness through the banisters, where the white sentries were still on guard, he suddenly flitted from my side across the landing. I daren't even try a loud whisper to call him back; he was fumbling with the catch of the little door in the far shadows, and I was just hesitating before bolting for bed and safety, when from our corridor sounded a cavernous yawn. Panicking, I shot across like a whippet, clutching vainly at East as he slipped through the low aperture into the gallery. Come back, come back, you mad bastard, my lips were saying, but no sound emerged, which was just as well, for with the opening of the little gallery door the clear tones of someone in the library echoed up to us. And light was filtering up through the fine screen which concealed the gallery from the floor below. If our Cossack guard was waking, and took a turn to the landing, he'd see the dim glow from the open gallery door. Gibbering silently to myself, half-way inside the little opening, I crept forward, edging the door delicately shut behind me.
East was flat on the dusty gallery floor, his feet towards me; it stank like a church in the confined space between the carved wooden screen on the one hand and the wall on the other. My head was no more than a foot from the screen; thank God it was a nearly solid affair, with only occasional carved apertures. I lay panting and terrified, hearing the voice down in the library saying in Russian:
.. so there would be no need to vary the orders at present. The establishment is large enough, and would not be affected."
I remember those words because they were the first I heard, but for the next few moments I was too occupied with scrabbling at East's feet, and indicating to him in dumb show that the sooner we were out of this the better, to pay any heed to what they were talking about. But damn him, he wouldn't budge, but kept gesturing me to lie still and listen. So I did, and some first-rate military intelligence we overheard, too—about
the appointment of a commissary-general for the Omsk region, and whether the fellow who commanded Orianburg oughtn't to be retired. Horse Guards would give their buttocks to know this, thinks I furiously, and I had just determined to slide out and leave East alone to his dangerous and useless foolery, when I became conscious of a rather tired, hoarse, but well-bred voice speaking in the library, and one word that he used froze me where I lay, ears straining:
"So that is the conclusion of our agenda? Good. We are grateful to you, gentlemen. You have laboured well, and we are well pleased with the reports you have laid before us. There is Item Seven, of course," and the voice paused. "Late as it is, perhaps Count Ignatieff would favour us with a resume of the essential points again."
Ignatieff. My icy bully of the registrar's office. For no reason I felt my pulse begin to run even harder. Cautiously I turned my head, and put an eye to the nearest aperture.
Down beneath us, Pencherjevsky's fine long table was agleam with candles and littered with papers. There were five men round it. At the far end, facing us, Ignatieff was standing, very spruce and masterful in his white uniform; behind him there was the huge easel, covered with maps. On the side to his left was a stout, white-whiskered fellow in a blue uniform coat frosted with decorations—a marshal if ever I saw one. Opposite him, on Ignatieff's right, was a tall, bald, beak-nosed civilian, with his chin resting on his folded hands. At the end nearest us was a high-backed chair whose wings concealed the occupant, but I guessed he was the last speaker, for an aide seated at his side was saying:
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