Black Ajax

Black Ajax George MacDonald Fraser In the spirit of Flashman and in the inimitable George MacDonald Fraser style comes a rousing story of prize fighting in the 19th century.When Captain Buck Flashman sees the black boxer catch a fly in mid-flight he realizes that he is in the presence of speed such as the prize ring has never seen. Tom Molineaux may be crude and untutored, but if ‘Mad Buck’ knows anything, this ex-slave is a Champion in the making. Under his ambitious patronage, the ‘Black Ajax’ is carried on a popular tide of sporting fever to his great dream: to fight the invincible, undefeated Champion of England, the great Tom Cribb.Told through funny, colourful voices, this novel paints a portrait of a flawed hero who surmounted the barriers of ignorance, poverty and racial hatred to bring the prize ring a lustre it had never known before, and may never again. Black Ajax George MacDonald Fraser CONTENTS Cover (#u7125994b-c9e5-5aaa-ac92-039236438004) Title Page (#ubcdfe996-f87b-5e13-aefe-bb14482c5623) Prologue (#uf04b6c38-dbe7-5245-9ffe-7ca1ba04193b) The Witnesses (#uf9bc6ffd-76b3-55c5-9237-b94bcbce0f58) Paddington Jones (#uf59c26f8-5fe1-528a-853a-6b143c3ad3cb) Lucien de la Guise (#ucc45f3e7-2ee8-57bf-9dcd-d8b8c1eac127) Marguerite Rossignol (#u8f9951f5-588f-55e6-8308-c2eb6d6ef6b0) Buckley Flashman (#u0cacb40c-5250-5fea-978d-fe4490074195) William Hazlitt (#litres_trial_promo) Bill Richmond (#litres_trial_promo) Tom Cribb (#litres_trial_promo) John Doe (#litres_trial_promo) Bob Logic (#litres_trial_promo) Pierce Egan (#litres_trial_promo) Henry Downes Miles (#litres_trial_promo) William Crockford (#litres_trial_promo) H.R.H. the Prince of Wales (#litres_trial_promo) Tom Molineaux (#litres_trial_promo) Bob Gregson (#litres_trial_promo) Captain Barclay (#litres_trial_promo) Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo) Glossary (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Praise (#litres_trial_promo) Other Works (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) PROLOGUE Galway, Ireland, 1818 (#ulink_ad070977-1458-544c-9e4e-4d20954953dc) The black man is dying, but neither he nor any of the other men in the barn suspects it. After all, he is quite young, and if the heavy negroid face is unhealthily puffy and badly scarred by old wounds which show oddly pale against the coarse dark skin, these are hardly fatal signs, and not unusual in his profession. He slumps, overweight and flabby, on a bench against the rough timber wall, a grimy blanket draped across his naked shoulders, an old hat on his woolly bullet head, and the hand holding a bottle of cheap spirits shakes visibly when he raises it to his lips, one of which has been split so deeply that it has healed into a permanent cleft running halfway to his chin. His arms are long and muscular, and though there are creases of fat overlapping his waistband, his sheer bulk gives an impression of formidable strength not yet quite gone to seed. His eyes are closed, and he is plainly tired, but not with a weariness that can be cured by rest; there may be no outward sign of deadly illness, but the pain in his kidneys and the ringing in his head are now continuous, and seem to him to be draining the spirit out of his big, hard-used body. A few years ago he was as famous in England as Napoleon; now he hardly remembers that time. Squatting in the straw, watching him anxiously and now and then addressing him in low voices to which he responds with a grunt or a nod, are two men in the crimson coats and yellow facings of the 77th Foot. They are not typical of the British Army, for they, too, are black. They have been drawn to the barn by fraternal sympathy with the dying man, a sentiment not shared by the only other person in view, a small, rat-like Cockney shabbily dressed in a worn tail-coat whose buttons are either tarnished or missing, stained pantaloons, and a beaver hat almost innocent of fur. He is the manager, for want of a better word, of the man on the bench, and is reflecting glumly that his protege is the very picture of a beaten-up, broken-down, drunken pug who could (bar his sable skin) serve as a model for all those other prize-ring cast-offs from whom the manager, in his time, has scraped a meagre dishonest living, parading them from one country fair to the next, shouting himself hoarse with lies about their past prowess, thrusting them into combat with a bellyful of beer to batter or be battered by the local bully, and passing round the hat afterwards. It may be a far cry from the Fives Court or Wimbledon Common, from the hundred-guinea purses and the twenty thousand pound side-bets, but it usually pays enough to keep manager and man in food and drink as far as the next village or market-town. Not that he expects much today, from the ragged, noisy crowd of yokels and urchins gathered about the makeshift roped square in the farmyard. Bleeding bumpkins, in the manager’s estimate, never seen a shilling in their lives, living on pepper, potatoes and water, slaves to Popish superstition, and content to sleep in sties with their animals, if they have any. His one hope is the local squireen, easily recognisable because he wears boots and sits in a dog-cart above the throng, passing the flask with his cronies and flipping a farthing to the ancient fiddler scraping out a jig tune; with luck the bucolic potentate will be good, if not for cash, at least for a leg of mutton and a bag of spuds, provided the fight is a good and bloody one. That depends, the manager is well aware, not so much on the local champion, a brawny, red-haired blacksmith who waits basking in the admiration of the gaping rustics, as on his own black fighter, whose behaviour this past month has been causing concern. Moody and withdrawn at the best of times, he has been going into long, trance-like silences, coming out of them only at the call of “Time!”, when he has instinctively come to scratch with his fists up, moving in a slow parody of that lightning dance-step which was once the wonder of the Fancy. Twice he has been so sluggish that the despairing Cockney has had to throw in the towel against opponents too unskilled or lacking the strength to knock him out; once, he has come unexpectedly alive and smashed an opponent into insensibility in a matter of seconds. His manager can only pray that today he will perform somewhere between those two extremes and give the spectators their money’s worth. Assuming, that is, that he can be got on his feet and led out to the yard, where the crowd is growing restive, the shrill Irish voices demanding a sight of the famous black, the legendary American hero whose feats once echoed even to this distant backwater, and who remains sprawled and apparently comatose on his bench in the dim interior of the barn. As the two soldiers and the cursing manager haul him upright he mutters a complaint of noises in his head; they demand, what noises?, but he cannot tell them. The manager becomes abusive, and to their astonishment and alarm the battered black face, its eyes still closed, smiles as though at some happy memory, for it is not the angry Cockney snarl that he hears, but another voice, eager and excited, from long ago, ringing down the years … “You know how many people came to Copthorn? Ten thousand! Ten goddam thousand, boy! An’ they came on foot, an’ on horses, an’ in carriages, to see Tom Molineaux, the Black Ajax – you! An’ when you meet Cribb again, there’ll be twenty, maybe thirty thousand, with the Dook o’ Clarence, and Mistah Brummell, an’ Lord Byron, an’ every bang-up swell in London, yeah, an’ maybe the Prince his own self! With half a million guineas a-ridin’ on the fight – an’ a million dollars’ worth of it’ll be on you!” Through the fog that clouds his mind, he hears it, and then it fades to a whisper, and is gone. He opens his eyes and stands, swaying slightly, steadied by the two soldiers, while the Cockney at the barn door proclaims his fighter. As the raucous voice silences the spectators’ chatter, the black man closes his eyes again, wincing at the stabbing pain in his lower body. Death is much closer now, but he is not aware of its approach, and if he was he would not care. The manager’s speech has finished, the fiddler strikes up a lively march, the black soldiers urge him gently forward, and he takes a faltering step. The scraping of the fiddle is drowning out the noises in his head, then blending into another sound from far away, the thumping of brass and a kettle drum’s rattle, growing louder amidst a tumult of distant voices, the murmur of a great multitude, and the music of Yankee Doodle, stirring him to action … Soft grass under restless feet shod in black pumps and white silk stockings with floral patterns. He skips on the damp turf, and a smirr of rain is on his face and chest, shivering him with its chill, as he moves forward into the winter sunlight, drawing the great caped coat closer about his shoulders. Out of the shadow, into the open, and the murmur of the throng swells to a great shout, Yankee Doodle rises to a crescendo, and now his feet are marching, the press of faces before him falling back to give him passage. White faces, all about him, smiling and grim, curious and jeering, hostile and laughing, fearful and admiring, marvelling and excited, and for a brief moment memory mingles with imagination in the mist of his mind, and he sees himself with their eyes … The caped figure striding through the lane of people and carriages held back by the “vinegars”, brisk burly attendants in long coats and top hats carrying horsewhips, his stride becoming a swagger as he shrugs off the cape to reveal the magnificent body beneath, the black skin gleaming as though it has been oiled, the jaunty head with its tight curls, the white silk breeches with ribbons at the knee and coloured scarf encircling the slender waist. He breaks into the shuffle of a plantation dance, laughing and waving to either side, a fine lady smiles from beneath the broad brim of her Mousquetaire and tosses him a posy which he catches, putting a flower behind his ear and bowing low over her hand before dancing on, blowing kisses to the roaring crowd as the faces retreat into shadow and the sound dies … He is floating high above them, looking down on a vast human amphitheatre, thousands upon cheering thousands ranged about a great roped circle, and beyond them the rolling wooded English countryside is bright in the December noontide, with scattered bands of running people and carts and carriages and horsemen, all hastening to join the huge expectant throng whose every eye is turned on that black and white figure, no bigger than a doll far beneath him, striding ahead, arms raised and hands clasped overhead in the age-old salute of the prize ring. Within the circle he can see the roped square, and the little knots of men standing and crouched about it, the umpires by the scales, the bottle-holders and timekeeper, the vinegars patrolling the space between square and outer circle to ensure order, the gamblers’ runners scurrying to and fro, and at one corner of the square a slim slight man, a Negro like himself but lighter in colour … … whose eyes are glittering with fierce excitement as they come face to face by the roped square. The mulatto is muttering to him and towelling his shoulders vigorously against the biting cold, but the black fighter does not hear him. As he pulls off his waist-scarf and knots it to the ring-post all his attention is directed to the opposite corner where a man is standing clear of the rest, a tall white man with a rugged open face beneath crisp black curls, clad like himself in breeches and pumps, a man with the shoulders of an Atlas, massive arms crossed on his deep chest, heavy-hipped and long-legged, shifting slightly as he waits, rising on tip-toe and down again. He nods with a little smile, and as the black man raises a hand in reply his other self, back in the Irish barn, feels a strange peace settling upon him, a sense of contentment at the end of a long journey, and he realises with a growing wonder that the journey ended there, by that roped square long ago, when he looked across into the strong acknowledging face of the tall curly-headed man, nodding to him, and recognised, for the first and only time in his life, a companionship that was far beyond any bond of love or affection or loyalty that he had ever known, because it was of equals, apart and alone. He cannot explain it or even understand it, but he knows that the tall man feels it too, and he laughs in pure happiness as he snatches the hat from the top of the ring-post where his scarf is fluttering in the breeze, and sends it skimming over the ropes … … to fall in the dust of the farmyard, startling a stray fowl which runs squawking wildly, and the red-haired blacksmith is rushing him, blue eyes glaring and arms flailing, and his feet shift and his body sways instinctively as he evades the attack. He knows he is too exhausted, in too much pain, to raise his hands or move his feet, yet somehow his hands are up, his feet are moving, and as the red-haired ruffian turns, the black left fist stabs into his face, and again, and yet again, and that is the last thing he remembers as the shadows close in, and then there is no more memory. THE WITNESSES (#ulink_3ddf0181-4f88-5fd4-bb7c-8018029d6e42) THOMAS (“PADDINGTON”) JONES, retired pugilist and former lightweight champion of England (#ulink_9649b4f0-0453-58a2-a79f-b8cef99fe36f) Who knows what’s inside a black man’s head? Not I, sir, nor you, nor any man. You can’t ever tell. Why? ’Cos they don’t think as we do. They are not of our mind. Now, I know there’s them as says a white man’s mind is no different, but I hold that it is. Take our own two selves, sir, if you’ll pardon the liberty. You can see the thoughts in my eyes, and – how shall I put it? – yes, you can follow my feelings ’cross this broken old phiz o’ mine, depending as I smile or frown, or set my jaw, or lower my blinds. Is that not so, sir? Course it is. And, begging your pardon, I can do likewise with you, pretty well anyway, though you’re deeper than I am, course you are. Why, this very minute you’re thinking, who’s this cork-brained old clunch with his bust-up map and ears like sponges, to read my mind for me? Yes, you are! No offence, sir, but it’s so, ain’t it? Course it is. Why’s that, sir? ’Cos we understand each other, though you’re a top-sawyer, as we used to say, and I’m an old bruiser, you’re a learned man and I can barely put my monarch on paper. But we’re white, and English, and of a mind, so to speak. Even with a Frenchman, with his lingo, you can still tell at first glance if he’s glad or blue-devilled or bent on mischief, which he most likely is. It shows, course it does. Not with your blackamoor, though. Not with the likes o’ big Tom. Oh, he could talk, and make some sense, and do as he was bid (most o’ the time), and put his case – but what was behind them eyes, sir, tell me that? What did he think and feel, down in the marrow of him? You couldn’t tell, sir, you never can, with them –’less they’re dingy Christians (half-white, I mean) like my pal Richmond, and even with him I could never take oath what the black half of his mind was turning over. And I knew him well, nigh on thirty year from when he beat Whipper Green in White Conduit Fields, till he hopped the twig Christmas afore last. Poor old Bill, I fought him twice, and that’s the way to know a man, sir, I tell you. Course it is. I milled him down in forty-one rounds at Brighton, I did, for a fifty-guinea side-stake – we were both lightweights, but he didn’t have my legs (nor my bottom, some said, him being black), and he had this weakness of dropping his left after a feint. Well, what’s your right hand for, eh, when a man leaves the door open thataway? I’d ha’ done him at Hyde Park, and all, but I broke my left famble on his nob, you see, in the eighteenth round – see there, sir, the ring finger’s crooked to this day. If it had been my right, I’d ha’ stood game, held him off and wore him out with a long left, ’cos he didn’t have the legs, as I told you, but when your left won’t fadge, what can you do? Cost my backers a fine roll o’ soft, my having to cry quits … Beg pardon, sir, where was I? Ah, speaking of knowing Richmond’s mind, as being half-black only. But big Tom, that was black to his backbone – no, a closed book he was. Not so much as a glint of natural feeling, as you might call it, in them strange yellow eyes of his, not even when he looked at you straight, which he seldom did. Head down, as if he was in the sullens, staring at his stampers, hardly a grunt or a mumble, that was his sort, as a rule. You’d as well talk to the parish pump or Turvey’s pig, when the broody fit was on him. You’d wonder if he had a mind at all, or was dicked in the nob. There were times, mind, when he would break out into the wildest fits, sky-larking and playing the fool like a jobbernowl or a nipper showing off with his antics, and other times, when he got in a proper tweak – in a tweak, sir? Why, bless you, angry, en-raged, in a fair taking – and you’d think, hollo, best stand off and look out, for it’s a wild beast loose. But ’twas no such thing, sir, for all his oaths and roarings, it was only noise, sir, but no action. He knew he was lowly, you see, having been a slave in America, and I reckon that held him in check, somehow, as if he knew ’twasn’t for him to show fight against his betters. Not even in the ring, you say? Ah, that was another piece o’ cheese. He was seldom angry inside the ropes; simple or not, he knew too much for that. Then again, I’ve seen times when he acted no more like a slave than you would. It’s no Banbury tale, sir, he could be head high and to old blazes with everyone, even royalty in the very flesh, when he’d strut like a gamecock and look down his great flat snout like any tulip, the sauciest nigger counter-coxcomb you ever saw, and dressed to the nines, oh, the slap-up black Corinthian, he was! They laughed at first – but I seen the day when they stopped laughing, and no error. But here’s the thing, sir: even then, when he was in his high ropes, I could never fathom whether he was hoaxing or not, or queer in his attic, maybe. You could not tell what was stirring under that woolly top-knot, if anything was, or see behind those black glims, bright and bloodshot rotten as though he’d been all night on the mop – which he had been, often as not. If I had a guinea for every time I’ve seen him home, shot in the neck and castaway to Jericho, I’d be richer than Coutts, and that’s a fact. Drink did for him – drink and skirt. I never seen his like when it came to the chippers, and didn’t they fancy him, just, for all his mug was more like an ape’s than a human’s, lips as fat as saveloys, his sneezer spread all over his cheeks, nob like a bullet, and coal-black ugly altogether. And not just the common punks and flash-mabs, neither, but your bang-up Cyprians, and Quality females, too, top o’ the ton with their own carriages and mansions up west. They could not get their fill of him. Made my stomach turn to think of it, him stinking the way they do. I reckon they were curious to know how a black man would be, so to speak, and I doubt if they was disappointed, for a more prodigious well-armed jockey I never did see, and as a trainer I’ve cast an eye over more likely anatomies than a resurrectionist. But ’twasn’t only that; why, even the sight of him, sparring at the Fives Court, or walking in the Park, or best of all posing for that Italian statue-carver in Ryder Street, was enough to turn the best-bred of ’em into flash-tails, for bar his clock he was Apollo come to life, the finest, strongest, bravest body of a man you ever clapped eyes on. That was beauty, sir, “ebony perfection in the artist’s eye”, Lord Byron said. Oh, if you could ha’ seen him that day at Copthorn when he came dancing out to meet Cribb! That was the day, sir, the day of the Black Ajax, the Milling Moor in all his glory, shoulders like a Guardee and the waist of an opera-girl, trained to a hair with those great sleek muscles a-ripple under a skin that shone like a sloe, and light as thistledown on the breeze. That was Tom, my Tom, for just an hour or so. There will never come another like him, sir, I can tell you. I saw him on the peak, tip-top high, and I saw him in the gutter. I saw him rich and famous, and I saw him scorched and forgotten. Why, I saw him shake the Prince Regent’s own hand, sir, and clink his glass of iced champagne punch while the noblest in the land clapped his shoulder all smiles – and I saw him face down in rags in a farmyard sty with the gapeseeds crowing each time he shot the cat, puking his innards out, so fat and used up he was. A sad end to a sad story, you say? Well, I don’t know about that, sir. I been in the Fancy man and boy for more’n fifty years, and they reckon I fought more mills than any boxer that ever came to scratch, and I lent a knee and held the bottle for as many more again. I was lightweight champion of All England. I stood up to the great Jem Belcher longer than any other did, giving him two stone, when he had both eyes, too! I’ve sparred with every champion of England since Mendoza – Humphries, Jackson, the Game Chicken, Gully, Cribb, and the rest of ’em. Nothing in Paddington Jones’s record to think shame of, you may say … but I never had a day like Copthorn, sir, and I don’t know many milling coves that did. He had that day, though, Black Tom Molineaux of America. The greatest day in the history of the game, a turn-up that they’ll talk about as long as there’s a prize ring. No, sir, I can’t say his was a sad story, however it ended, not with that day in it. I knew him as well as anyone in his life, I suppose. I trained him, and taught him, and seconded him, and nursed him (and cursed him, I dare say), and was as close to him as a man could be. But as I said, I never knew his mind, or what he thought truly of us, or of the Fancy, or of London that he came to a great black simpleton and yet was talk o’ the Town afore all was done, or of England that cheered and jeered him, and loved and hated him – oh, and feared him, too … what Tom Molineaux thought of all of that, sir, I can’t say. Who knows what’s in a black man’s head? Did I say drink and wenches did for him? Well, that’s gospel, sure enough, but when I think back on him I reckon pride did for him, too. I may not have known his mind, but I’ll lay all the mint sauce in the Bank to a sow’s baby that he had pride in him for a belted earl, born slave and all though he was. You smile, sir? Well, I’ve said my say, and I tell you, he was a proud man, and paid for it. What’s that, sir? Was he the best? Ah, well, now it’s my turn to smile. I’ll put it this ways: Mendoza was no faster, Belcher was no cleverer, and Ikey Bittoon the Jew never hit no harder, to which last I can testify, having had three ribs stove in by him. In fine, sir, Tom Molineaux was as good as ever twanged – but the best? Bless you, there’s no such creature, let the wiseacres say what they will. Why, sir? Because somewhere, and the good Lord only knows where, but somewhere, sir, there’s always one better. Course there is. LUCIEN-MARIE D’ESTREES DE LA GUISE, gentleman of leisure, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (#ulink_4ebd01ad-cf6c-5904-bab8-739ffb07c1ec) It is simply untrue, whatever my more sycophantic admirers may say, that I insist on perfection in all things. That they should think so is, perhaps, natural, but that they should say so aloud is unpardonable, since it suggests that I am susceptible to flattery. No, I am fastidious, that is all, but I am well aware that perfection in anything is rarely to be found, even by such an assiduous seeker of the ideal as myself. This being so, I am content merely to insist upon the best – the very best, you understand, be it in personal comfort, wardrobe, feminine company, male conversation (I talk to women, of course, but I have yet to converse with one), horses, weapons, food and drink, amusement, or any other of those necessities and pleasures which gratify the senses of a cultivated man. And since I am noble, insistent, and rich, the best is usually forthcoming. When it is not, I withdraw. I remove, I take myself away, and if that is not possible, I endure, for as brief a time as may be, with good grace and perfect composure. It is not for one who bears the names of Guise and d’Estrees to do less. Thus, when my American cousin, Richard Molineaux of Virginia, descends on my Louisiana estate, with the appalling demand that I accompany him to New Orleans to see his slave, “the best dam’ fightin’ nigra in the South” (his words, not mine) pit himself against another black savage, I decline with aplomb. Cousin Richard is not of the best. Indeed, it is hard to place him at all. I say, with the insincere courtesy which kinship requires: “Give me the pleasure of your society here for as long as you wish, dear Richard, and by all means take your primitive to New Orleans to do battle, but do not ask me to be present. To a man of sensibility the spectacle of two gross aborigines mauling each other (to death no doubt) would be painful in the extreme. I wish to oblige you in all things, as you know, but I cannot expose myself to that.” “Why, how you talk!” cries he, red-faced, and perspiring in my drawing-room. “Since when you tender o’ niggers gittin’ hurt, or kilt? I collect you kilt a fair few right here on yore own plantation –” “Only under the painful necessity of discipline.” “Painful necessity, yore French ass! Yo’ glad of an excuse to string ’em up!” cries he. He is of inexpressible coarseness, this Molineaux, being American of the English. It is true that I also am in the narrow legal sense American, but of France, which I need not tell you is a vastly different thing. We remain what we have always been, Frenchmen. The English, having no heritage of civilisation, become American without difficulty. “An’ ’tain’t no necessary discipline that makes you git yo’self a front seat at the whippin’-house whenevah they’s a comely yeller wench to be lashed!” bawls he, leering, and stamping his boots without regard for my Louis Seize carpet. “You jes’ admires to see ’em a-squealin’ an’ a-squirmin’ – oh, Ah knows you, Lucie! You got real dee-praved tastes, cousin!” I invite him to sit, marvelling that my great-aunt should have married the grandfather of such a creature. “The necessary execution, occasionally, of one of my own slaves for disciplinary reasons, is something I deplore, since it is both expensive and inconvenient. The correction of personable young slave wenches at the whipping-house, artistically administered, is an aesthetic experience,” I inform him. “But I do not expect you to appreciate the distinction. Be that as it may, my Richard, the privilege of watching your ‘fighting nigra’ display his disgusting talents is one which I shall be happy to forgo.” “Whut you talkin’ ’bout? Ah thought you liked boxin’? Least, you never tire tellin’ ’bout all the great champeens you seen in Englan’. Well, Ah got me a champeen, a nigra champeen, so now! An’ he can whip any man ’twixt heah an’ Texis, ye heah?” If I shudder, do you wonder? How to explain to this oafish Richard, disdaining the aperitif I offer him and calling for his detestable “corn”, that to compare his black barbarian to the English masters of la boxe is to compare … what? A plough-horse to an Arab blood, a drab to La Dubarry, a Dahomey idol to a Donatello? How to convey that beside the speed, the science, yes, the beauty of an English prize-fight, the spectacle of his brawling brutes would be the crude beastliness of swine in a sty? An impossible task, so I do not attempt it. If it should seem remarkable that I, an aristocrat of Louisiana, should not only know but admire to excess the pugilistic art, I must digress to tell you how this came about. During the late unpleasantness between France and England which ended so deplorably with the unnecessary catastrophe of Mont Saint Jean, (#ulink_40f3f54e-3642-58b4-84b7-f1fb304acc39) I had felt it my duty to unsheath the sword in my true country’s service. After all, France is France, a Guise is a Guise, and mere accident of birth on the unfortunate side of the Atlantic cannot alter allegiance, or excuse a gentleman from discharging the obligations which blood and breeding impose. If I hesitated at all, it was at the thought of attaching myself to revolutionary upstarts, but I consoled myself with the reflection that others with lineage hardly inferior to my own had condescended to enlist in the armies which they commanded. In brief, we put the honour of France first, and the likes of Corporal Bonaparte nowhere. Very well. Of my service I choose to say only that it ended with my being taken prisoner in ’98, thanks to the mismanagement of our Irish expedition by a general who in civil life had been a vendor of rabbit-fur. C’est la revolution. Thereafter I passed some years in captivity in England. No need to speak of that curious country and its inhabitants, save to concede that they know at least how to behave to an enemy nobly born, and, my parole being taken for granted, I found myself a guest rather than a prisoner. And since their polite society is devoted to sport, I became acquainted with, and, I confess, fell under the spell of that great national pastime which they properly call the Noble Art. At first, to be sure, the notion of watching the lower orders pummelling each other with their bare fists was repugnant. How could it be otherwise, to one whose training in personal combat had been confined to the epee, the sabre and the pistol, and whose whole being and temperament inclined to all that was refined and elegant, and recoiled from the vulgar and brutal? But it chanced that I had my first view of pugilism when I was conducted by Guards officers to an exhibition by the magnificent Mendoza, then past his prime but a master still, and was ensnared forever. I saw, in the person of that amazing Jewish athlete, the embodiment of graceful motion allied to power, intelligence, and skill, and realised that here was the ultimate expression of the human body in action. Here was the beauty of the ballet wedded to the violence of the battle, the destructive force, unaided by any weapon, of Man the Animal, trained and controlled to complete harmony, terrible and sublime. I came, I saw, I marvelled at craft so complete that it seemed elevated to art. This was mere demonstration, of course, sport without danger in which the Hebrew master and his partner displayed the shifts and feints and counters and bewildering nimbleness of foot which are the prime-to-octave of the prize ring. It was intoxication of the soul to behold. Only later, when I saw pugilists engage in deadly earnest, did I realise that it was something more, that here was Truth, the unleashing of man’s deepest primordial instinct to destroy, to inflict pain, to wound, and to kill – but with a finesse whose delicacy would become the finest surgeon, and a dispassionate detachment worthy of the classic philosophers. In what other sphere, I ask, can the connoisseur witness and savour at length the slow torture, exquisitely inflicted, of one human creature by another, and experience the thrilling feral joy of the expert tormentor and the helpless protracted suffering and shame of the victim? Let no one deny to the English their share, however modest, of genius, for they have devised the purest form of cruelty, beyond the imaginings of clumsy Inquisitors or the pathetic de Sade, whereby man inflicts punishment, mutilation, agony, and humiliation on his own kind, gradually and deliberately, with the most subtle refinement, and calls it a game. I do not box myself. I have aptitude enough for manly sport, and fence, shoot, and ride with more than ordinary address, but while I have indulged myself with dreams in which I possessed the prowess of a Belcher or a Mendoza, practising my art on impotent opponents, I recognise that this is beyond my power. I could not achieve “the best” – and even the best in the prize ring, where the difference between champions is a hair’s breadth, must endure their portion of suffering. I do not share the peculiar English satisfaction of experiencing pain while inflicting it. Sufficient for me to enjoy the art and the agony as a spectator. To speak of this to my boorish Richard Molineaux would have been to expound Epicurus to a Hottentot. He had no thought beyond his “fightin’ nigra” and his forthcoming triumph over another savage, the Black Ghost, the reigning monarch of what passed for prize-fighting in our southern states, a revolting parody of boxing more akin to the ancient pankration, in which the contesting slaves battered, kicked, gouged, tore, bit, and wrestled each other in murderous frenzy, frequently with fatal results. This Black Ghost, I was informed, had killed four opponents and maimed a dozen others, and was accounted invincible by the patrons of this loathsome butchery. “Say, but jes’ wait till ma Tom sets ’bout him!” exults my gross companion. “Why, that Tom, he the meanest, strongest, fightin’est buck in the country! He goin’ chaw up this Black Ghost an’ spit him all over the bayous, yessir! Ah tell yuh, Lucie, he licked ev’y fightin’ nigra in Virginny, an’ he tear the ears an’ bollix offa that ole Ghost an’ mash his face in like ’twas a rotten melon! He got fists like steel balls, and yuh couldn’t fell him with a ten-pound sledge, no suh …” And more, and more of the same in praise of his prodigy, until to quiet him I consent to view this behemoth in the slave quarters. I expect, from Richard’s description, to see a giant of hideous aspect, with elephantine limbs, ponderous and clumsy, but no, to my astonishment here is a young black buck of middle height, hideous and primitive of feature, indeed, but shapely and well-made enough, as I see when he strips at his master’s command. He stands square and stolid as a bullock, without sense. I bid him skip, and he shows agility, but no elan, no spirit, none of that eagerness mercurial that is the sign of the trained boxer. I bid him put up his fists, and he comes on guard like a novice, his hands before his face and his head bowed, as though in fear. I whisper to my Ganymede to strike him suddenly on the face with a cane. He flinches, but his feet do not move. Bon appetit, M’sieu Black Ghost, I say to myself, here is your repast, a mere dull lump of black flesh. But out of regard for Richard I observe only that his teeth are good and his skin smooth, without blemish or scar. “Say, nevah no welts on nigras o’ mine!” cries Richard. “’Fore Ah has ’em trimmed up we spreads a wet canvas on they backs, so the cowhide doan’ leave so much’s a mark. But Tom doan’ need no whip these days, do ye, Tom? No, suh, ’cos he’s ma fightin’ nigra, so gits the best o’ pamperin’ an’ vittles an’ wenches, ain’t that so, Tom?” “Yes, mass’,” mumbles the black dolt, his head bowed. “But you doan’ git no pleasurin’ yet awhiles, haw-haw – not till you done beat that ole Black Ghost into mush an’ broke him up so he nevah fight no mo’! Then yuh gits all the pleasurin’ you want – an’ if you trim him real good, maybe Ah lets you wed wi’ li’l Mollybird? How yuh like that, Tom?” And my Richard cuffs him in playful humour, at which Tom shuffles and grins. “Like dat right well, mass’,” says he. This astonishes me. “You permit your slaves to marry, then? My good Richard, why? They will breed as well without benefit of a sacrament which Le Bon Dieu never intended for such creatures. And consider, if you please, that to encourage sentiment of family among them is to sow discontent when they or their brood come to be sold apart, as may well happen.” He puts out his great American lip. “Doan’ breed nigras for sale. Ma nigras mo’ like to family. Why, this boy Tom heah, he Tom Molineaux. He ma nigra, he bear ma name, take pride in bein’ a Molineaux. ’Sides, he an’ li’l Molly bin sweet on each other since they children, so’s fittin’ they should wed, now she’s full growed.” He cuffs the brute again. “You jes’ itchin’ for her, Tom, ain’t that so? Well, you whup the Black Ghost, an’ she’s yo’s, boy – in a real white dress, an’ Ah give her a locket fo’ a bride gift! Whut you think o’ that, now? Say, Lucie, you like ’em yaller, don’t ye! You gotta see her – hey, wheah that Mollybird?” Knowing my Richard’s taste in African flesh, I look to see some voluptuous she-ape, but am enchanted when Mollybird comes tripping from the women’s cabins. She is perhaps fifteen, and of a delicacy to kindle the appetite of the most jaded, pale gold of skin and exquisitely slender, with dainty hands and feet, and great gazelle eyes in the face of a madonna. She approaches modestly, putting her hand into that of the boy Tom, and they smile on each other. And this fragile beauty is to be defiled by that hulking animal! An atrocity not to be contemplated. “Ain’t she the sweetest li’l wench?” crows my vandal cousin. “She virgin, too. Now, Mollybird, make yo’ rev’rence to Messoor la Geeze, now!” She makes her curtsey, and I see the fear start in her eyes when I beckon her so that I may caress her cheek. It is like silk to my fingers, and when I take a cachou from my comfit-box and place it tenderly between her lips that are like pink petals she trembles in the most delicious fashion. When I stroke her fine long hair and whisper in her ear what a pretty girl she is, and inquire of Richard what is her price, her terror is delightful. “Why, Lucie, you ole dawg!” guffaws he. “Didn’t Ah say yuh liked ’em yaller? No, no, ma boy, she ain’t fo’ sale! She promised to Tom heah – why, if he was to lose Mollybird he’d mope an’ pine an’ likely die on me! That’s why I brung her f’m Virginny, to keep her close by him, fo’ his comfo’t. But not too close, hey, Tom? No honeymoonin’ ’til you lambasted that ole Black Ghost!” One does not haggle in the presence of slaves, so I say no more and put the delectable child from my mind for the moment. At supper Richard is his gluttonous self, and insufferably boisterous in his cups, pressing me to change my mind and accompany him to the fight next day, and boasting with intolerable noise of the punishment his protege will visit on his opponent. I am courteously adamant in my refusal, which makes him sullen, and as the evening and his intoxication progress, I detect a change in my vainglorious cousin. He frowns, and falls silent from time to time, and scowls on his glass, and bites his nails – a cannibal at the table of de la Guise, but there it is. Suddenly he explodes. “You know all ’bout boxin’ an’ fightin’ men! You seen ma boy Tom – he’s a prime figure, ain’t he? He smash this Black Ghost feller, fo’ sure, yuh reckon?” I ask him, how am I to judge, who have seen neither fight, and he pours my Beaune down his uncomprehending throat. “That Black Ghost, he one killin’ nigra!” he mutters. “They tellin’ me he a reg’lar villain, got no mercy, beat the best fightin’ nigras on the Gulf! An’ Blenkinsop, whut owns him, they say he keep him caged up, in a cage with iron bars, an’ shackled to boot! Say he cain’t let him loose ’mong other nigras, even, for fear he tear ’em up in his rage! He ain’t human, they sayin’!” “My dear Richard, none of them is human. Vocal animals, as the Romans said.” His hand shakes as he fills his glass and soaks my table linen. “My boy Tom, he nevah bin beat! Why, he licked Matheson’s nigra, that’d beat ten men, beat him senseless in twenny-two minutes, yessir! Matheson’s nigra a real champeen, they say! Twenny-two minutes, an’ cudn’t git up to ma Tom!” “Then why such anxiety?” He licks his lips and drums his great fingers. “Black Ghost killed Matheson’s buck two weeks back. Bust his neck in his two hands like ’twas kindlin’. Fight didn’t last three minutes.” I assure him that form is not to be judged by such comparisons, and for a moment his fears subside. To revive them, I inquire what odds are being laid on this monster, and the stem of his glass is snapped between his fingers. His mouth works and his voice is hoarse. “Five to one on th’ Ghost,” says he. “That’s whut had me plungin’. Nevuh was sech odds! Ah cudn’t resist, Lucie, Ah tell yuh!” His face is glistening as he turns it to me, red and staring. “Ah backed ma Tom to th’ hilt!” This becomes interesting. I inquire of figures, and he brims another glass and gulps: “Fifty-fi’ thousand dollahs!” I wonder, not at the prodigious sum, but at the folly of wagering it on an insensate piece of black flesh against a fighter of formidable repute whom, it seems, he has never even seen. I remind him of his confidence, so freely expressed but a moment ago, and he groans. “’Spose he lose! ’Spose he cain’t whup the Ghost! The bastard kilt four men a’ready! ’Spose he kill ma Tom!” “Why, then, my Richard, your enchanting Mollybird will be inconsolable, and you, dear cousin, will have lost an indifferent slave and fifty-five thousand dollars. What then? Your fortune, to say nothing of your acres at Ampleforth, are sufficient to bear such a trifling loss, surely.” “Triflin’!” bawls he, starting up. “Triflin’! Damn yuh, Ah ain’t got it!” And another priceless piece of Murano workmanship is reduced to shards. “Ah ain’t got hardly fifty-fi’ thousand cents! Ah’s ploughed, don’t ye unde’stan’, yuh frawg-eatin’ fool!” My gratification at this unexpected news is such that I overlook the disgraceful term of abuse. “Yuh think Ah’d wager a fortune Ah ain’t got if Ah wasn’t desp’rate?” To complete my disgust, he begins to weep, slumped in his chair, this pitiful article of Saxon blubber. “I tell yuh, Ah’s owin’ all aroun’, the bank, an’ the Jew lenders, an’ Amplefo’th bin plastered to hellangone fo’ yeahs, an’ that dam’ Gwend’line” – his wife, an impossible, gaudy female of ludicrous pretensions and no pedigree – “spendin’ like Ah had a private mint – an’ Ah’s burned to the socket, Lucie! Ah’s so far up Tick River Ah cain’t be seen, hardly!” He sinks his mutton head in his hands. “Tom’s gotta win – he gotta win, or Ah’s turned up fo’ever! Oh, Lucie, you ma friend, ma own cousin, whut Ah goin’ to do?” A delightful spectacle, which I view with satisfaction, noting en passant that whereas most men in drink are given to optimism, my Richard in his maudlin state finds himself visited by spectres apparently forgotten in his sober moments. That his terrors are well-founded I do not doubt: the man is a fool, and a wastrel fool, I know, given to reckless gambling, and extravagance in which his ridiculous Gwendoline, with her absurd notions of position, will have borne more than her share. I am astonished only that in a few years he should have dissipated a splendid fortune and one of the finest estates in Virginia, and wonder if his misfortunes have reduced him to the point where he will apply to me for assistance. But no, even in his abject state he does not forget the obligations of gentility. His nauseous lamentations are a mere confessional, for he is of that contemptible sort who find solace in pouring out their miserable secret fears. I see no immediate advantage to myself in his plight, but am moved to alter my resolve not to accompany him to the contest which will certainly prove his ruin. The spectacle of the gross Richard tormented by desperate hope, his grotesque antics as he sees, in the destruction of his vaunted “fightin’ nigra” at the hands of the Black Ghost, the utter dissolution of fortune and reputation, his dawning despair as he contemplates the shame and degradation awaiting him, the loss of honour and, it may be, life itself – no, that is an entertainment that I shall assuredly not forgo. Indeed, it will afford me infinite pleasure, and some compensation for his boorish denial to me of that ravishing little octoroon, his pollution of my table appointments, and the affront to my senses of his repulsive company. My change of heart raises him from the abyss to raptures of gratitude, his pusillanimous nature finding comfort in a mere gesture of support, as though my presence at his debacle should somehow shield him from misfortune. He agrees readily to my suggestion that Mollybird should accompany us, which I assure him must inspire his champion. I do not add that her distress as her hero is thrashed to pulp will be as a sauce piquant to my enjoyment of the occasion. The fight is appointed for the following evening, in the garden of one of the larger exclusive brothels of the Vieux Carre, an establishment familiar to me from my youth, when debauchery was an occupation, not an art. All has been arranged to delight the popular taste, with coloured lanterns among the trees to light the raised stage; couches placed for the more favoured patrons with row upon row of chairs behind for the sporting fraternity, and benches for the untouchables; buffets from which wines and delicacies are conveyed to the foremost spectators; an orchestra on the balcony plays the primitive plantation rhythms; black and yellow strumpets in the most garish of costumes flaunt their uncovered bosoms in parade about the stage, or lounge on the couches with the patrons; the bawds, hovering like so many bedizened harpies, despatch their choicest trollops to the richest clients; runners pass among the great crowd giving the latest odds and collecting wagers for the leading gamesters, who are seated at tables before the front rank; and on the stage itself the dancers of the establishment, stalwart young bucks and nubile wenches stimulated by the intolerable din of the musicians, perform measures of the most tedious obscenity to cries of encouragement and advice from the vulgar herd. I am deafened by noise, poisoned by the reek of cigars, offended by recognition from mere acquaintances who presume to greet me as I take my seat on a couch, and disgusted by the raffish abandon of the occasion. I resign myself, bidding Ganymede fan the fumes from about my person, close my ears to the guffawing and cackling of the mob, and am consoled to see that Richard, seated by me, is distraught and of that mottled complexion which in the bucolic passes for pallor, while Mollybird, crouched at his feet, trembles with anxiety. I smile and pat her shoulder, and she shrinks enchantingly. Her fiance, our admired Tom, has the appearance of a beast in the abattoir, grey of feature and twitching his limbs as he listens to a small nondescript who wears a brass earring and patters what I assume to be advice and instruction. “That Bill Spicer, an English sailor,” Richard informs me. “Knows all ’bout the Fancy, bin givin’ Tom prime trainin’, teachin’ him the guards an’ sech.” He says it without confidence, and as I regard M’sieur Spicer, I share his pessimism. A positive thunder from the musicians heralds the arrival of the Black Ghost, and, ma foi!, he is a spectacle, that one. He bounds to the stage like a hideous genie from a bottle, the image of that blackamoor who ravishes princesses in the Oriental tale. He is a giant, a full head taller than Tom, stark naked, with great lean limbs and the torso of a Hercules, his whole body scarred with the wounds of his contests and the lashes of his overseers. He is terrific as he stalks the stage, grinning horribly and flaunting himself at the whores, flexing his mighty arms and rolling his eyes about him. His skull, from which one ear has been torn away, is small and shaved clean, so that it resembles a polished cannon ball. He booms “Ho-ho!” like an ogre as he makes his bow to his master, the corpulent Blenkinsop, and squats on his heels above Tom, baring the few yellow teeth remaining in his ghastly jaws, and spitting threats in an awful croaking voice. “Po’ li’l nigga-boy! Whyn’t yuh run back t’yo’ mammy? Cuz yuh stay heah, Ah gwine eat yo’ ears an’ yo’ eyes and pull yo’ tongue out yo’ stoopid nigga haid! Yuh skeered, boy? C’mon up heah, yuh won’ be skeered no mo’, cuz yuh’ll be daid!” Blenkinsop’s drivers make a great show of driving the brute back with their whips, to the cheers of the multitude, and I note with interest that Tom, who but a moment since seemed in a state of fear, is now at ease, shrugging and skipping a little as he waits his summons to the stage. You must understand that these contests are conducted in the very crudest fashion. There is no question of referee or timekeeper or whip-pers-in to marshal the spectators, no weighing of the men beforehand, none of the ceremonial so dear to the true Fancy of the Ring, whereby the contestants are brought together at the mark for instruction and to shake hands, and without which no English mill is permitted to proceed for a moment. Why, there are no rounds or rules or even seconds. It is the pitting of wild beasts in an arena, without procedure, to belabour and maim as they wish until one is insensible or dead. As to the spectators, they are there to see a slave butchered as cruelly as may be, without proper appreciation of how the thing is done. There is no thought of style or grace or skill. The bully from the brothel bawls: “Fight!” and the savages tear each other to pieces. Nor is there that moment of calm so striking in the true prize-fight, when the gladiators face each other at the mark. As Tom and the Black Ghost prepare for the assault the howling rises to a tempest, Richard bellows beside me, Mollybird hides her face at his knee, and in that audience of pandemonium only three are tranquil: myself, the stout Blenkinsop who lounges smiling as he sips his punch and fondles the slut on his knee – and the man Spicer, crouched by the stage, his bright eyes on the combatants. I feel, in that moment, an invisible bond with him: in that ignorant mindless mob who see only the monstrous spectral Goliath towering above the insignificant David, are he and I alone in noting the superb proportions of Tom’s limbs, shining with health, the lightness with which he balances on his toes, the steady regard with which he watches his enemy? Spicer is softly calling: “Left hand, lad. Let ’im come to ye. Left, an’ side-step. Distance, lad, distance.” It is good advice, and my opinion of this Spicer increases – but it proves fatal, for Tom, nodding that he hears, turns his head, and in that moment the Black Ghost, who has been mouthing and snarling taunts, leaps silent across the stage and with a lightning stroke of his mighty arm smashes Tom to the boards and is upon him, screaming again as he beats and tears furiously at his opponent. Tom breaks free and staggers afoot, but even as he rises the Ghost drives his knee into his face, and Tom stumbles like a drunkard as the giant belabours him without mercy. It is all he can do to retreat, shielding his head from those dreadful blows, the blood running down his face and chest, until another ponderous swing of that terrible arm hurls him to the boards, to be stamped and trampled underfoot. It is the end, before it has begun, think I, but he seizes the Ghost’s ankle, tumbling him down, and grips him in a wrestler’s lock. The Ghost howls and raves, but he cannot break the hold, and Tom has a moment to recover while my Richard shouts without meaning, the spectators deafen us with their cheering, the little Spicer’s admonitions are lost in the uproar, and the fat Blenkinsop settles himself at more ease, laughing as he nuzzles his whore. Now, it is not for me, who have seen Jackson and Mendoza and Belcher, and could describe every blow, every feint, and every parry of those masters, to record in similar particulars the progress of that unworthy gutter combat. In truth, I observe it only in general, my attention being claimed by the conduct of Richard and my yellow beauty, and the assembly at large as they behold the nauseating spectacle. For as it has begun, so it continues. Tom’s respite is but temporary, for the Ghost escapes the lock by breaking his right thumb. The spectators shriek for joy as Tom, with one hand useless, stands helpless under the rain of blows visited upon him. Round the stage he is driven by that roaring black demon whose strokes fall on his body with such fearful impact that it seems his ribs and spine must be shattered. Did the Black Ghost but know how to use his fist, like a rapier rather than a hammer, all would be over in a few rallies. But he clubs with his huge arms, delivers savage kicks a la savate, tears Tom’s hair from his head, rakes with clawing nails, and rends and bites when they close, with such ferocity that Tom falls repeatedly, and is twice hurled from the stage. And the onlookers, then? They bay like dogs, exhorting the Ghost to maim, to kill, to gouge the eyes, to break the bones, to castrate. Men rise, eyes wild and faces engorged, aping with their fists the blows of the victor. Women white and black, their features like the masks of snarling leopards, squeal in ecstasy as the helpless flesh is pounded and the blood flows. My Richard waves his hands and rages blaspheming at his man to stand and fight, to smite the Ghost to perdition, and sinks back on the couch, his mouth trembling as with a seizure, groaning and all but weeping, a delightful picture of despair. The tender Mollybird shrieks and covers her face, but when Tom is hurled from the stage for the second time, and lies a bloody ruin before her, she casts herself upon him in a frenzy of grief. “Stand clear, gel,” says Spicer, and stooping sinks his teeth in the lobe of Tom’s ear. He revives, but lies helpless as those nearest revile him, calling him a stinking coward nigger, urging him to resume and be slain, to afford them the sport of his torture, and the beaten hulk pulls himself up, with Richard bawling at him, and the man Spicer snapping at his ear: “Left ’and! Left ’and! You ain’t dead yet, lad! Stand away an’ give ’im Long Tom! Go fer ’is peepers! Left ’and, d’ye hear?” Tom hears, for he nods his head, the blood flying from his face, and regains the stage. The Ghost rushes yelling and flailing for the kill, and is brought to a halt as Tom thrusts out his fist at full length. It jars upon that devilish face and gives him pause, then he brushes it aside, beating with his great forearms, and again Tom topples from the stage and lies like one dead. Mollybird screams and seizes Richard by the hand, begging him to give in. “Please, Mass’ Richud, oh, please, doan’ let ’im beat ’im no mo’! Please, mass’, he dyin’! Oh, mass’, take pity on ’im! He cain’t no mo’!” I am touched, but Richard spurns her away, and runs raging at Tom, kicking him brutally in the side. “Git up, yuh black bastard! Git up, damn yo’ lousy hide! Fight, yuh carrion! Quit on me, will yuh? Git up theah, or by God Ah’ll kill yuh!” Spicer kneels by Tom’s head, and again bites the ear. Again, it revives, but he can only shake his head, horribly slobbered with blood from the gashes on his cheeks. “’E’s done, guv’nor,” says Spicer, and Richard stands, his breath wheezing, speechless as he sees the death of his hopes in the battered carcase at his feet. Above on the stage the Black Ghost gibbers and struts in triumph, flinging up his hands, inviting the applause of the crowd who fling money and flowers and bon-bons to the stage. Blenkinsop approaches, lays a paw on Richard’s shoulder, and commiserates. “Reckon yo’ boy cain’t lay ma ghost, Mol’neaux! He used up, seemin’ly. You give him best, Ah reckon.” Richard does not hear him. He glares about him, at the gloating faces, at the Black Ghost prancing above, at the smug Blenkinsop who smokes his cigar and toys with his seals, smiling on his cronies. And Richard exceeds my fondest hopes, for in a voice hoarse with fury he stoops above Tom and shouts: “You git up an’ fight! You fight till you daid, ye heah! Or by the holy Ah give you a death’ll last a week! Ah’ll have you lashed, real slow, till ev’y drop o’ black blood’s dreened clear out o’ yuh! Yuh heah me, yuh black swine! Git up, I say! Damn yuh! Fight, fight, fight!” Mollybird swoons and I bid Ganymede place her on the couch beside me. The sensation of her slim shape within my embracing arm is infinitely pleasing, and as I put my flask to her lips I inhale the fragrance of her hair and feel the smooth skin beneath my fingers. I am of all men the least susceptible, but when her lids flutter and those wondrous eyes are revealed, and again I see the fear in their depths, it is too much. My desire conjures in my mind visions of ecstatic possession. I tremble in my turn as I picture her far from this sordid melee, in elysian surroundings to match her fresh loveliness, young, virginal, helpless, and adorable beyond expression. And I am inspired of a sudden, for as Richard raves, I see again what I have just seen upon the stage, my glance rests on the half-broken body of the man Tom, muttering feebly and shaking his torn head, while Spicer sponges his swollen face … and I pluck Richard by the sleeve, commanding him to be quiet. “You wish to win this combat?” I ask. “You wish to save your fortune and your honour?” He glares at me uncomprehending, his stupid red face bedewed with sweat, breathing like a bullock. “If you do, you will cease these childish vapourings, and attend to me. I can put victory in your hand.” He looks from me to the stricken fighter and back again. He shakes his head in bewilderment, and stoops close to me. “Whut you sayin’? Damn yuh, Lucie, you hoaxin’ me? Whut yuh mean, Ah kin win? How, godammit? That black lummox is beat all to hell – look at him, blast yuh, ain’t nuthin’ goin’ git him up again!” “I assure you, my dull cousin, that if you do as I instruct, he will undoubtedly get up again. I believe he will win, but if he should fail, your situation can be no worse than it is at this moment – ruined, bankrupt, dishonoured … my dear Richard, you might as well be dead.” “Yo’ crazy!” he cries. “Why, yuh lousy French pimp, yo’ jes’ tormentin’ me, out o’ spite!” He sobs and tears his hair, and I turn from him in distaste. “As you please. Farewell, M. Molineaux. Enjoy your degradation. I shall.” He appears to be demented. He breaks again into insults, I sit aloof, and then at last he snarls at me: “How, damn ye? Tell me! Whut I do, fo’ God’s sake! Whut yuh want, yuh dam’ snake? Lucie, in the name o’ Jesus, man, tell me!” “You make a trade with me. You present to me, as a gift, this pretty toy for my amusement.” I indicate the girl, who whimpers in most appealing terror. “In return, I show you the secret.” “She’s yo’s!” cries he. “Take the slut! Now, tell me – whut I do?” I indicate his fallen champion. “Promise him his freedom.” At this there is sensation. They stare, they roar with laughter, Blenkinsop shakes his head and turns away, those out of earshot shout questions, they press forward about us, Richard makes to speak, is dumb, and stands amazed. I watch as the thoughts pass across his crimson face, he beats his temples in hesitation, and then with a curse flings away and kneels by Tom. His words are lost in the uproar. I am content to have Mollybird within my reach. I do not caress her, or draw her to me. I sit at my ease, waiting. There is commotion about the stage, and Tom is coming to his feet, with the man Spicer giving support, and I hear Richard’s voice raised in a different key of desperation. “Free! Free, Ah tell yuh! Good boy, Tom – why, yuh ain’t beat at all! Yuh ma fightin’ nigra, sho’ ’nuff, an’ you be a free man, ’pon ma honour! Yuh heah me, gennelman, ma bounden word! Free, Tom, Ah vow!” And more of the same, while Tom sways and paws at his bleeding wounds, and I wonder if the enjoyment of my new chattel is to be denied me after all. But I have seen what I have seen, for a brief moment, and Spicer has seen it, too, for he whispers urgently at Tom’s ear, clenching his left fist, and Tom shakes his head in sudden resolution, sprinkling those about him with blood. He has had precious moments to renew his strength, and indeed there are those gamesters who cry that he has had too long a respite, and must forfeit the contest. But Blenkinsop laughs and shrugs, and the mob howl that it must be fought a l’outrance. The gamesters think of their gains, and the onlookers of Tom’s torment to come, and the majority prevail. Now I whisper in the ear of Mollybird. “Go to him, child. Inspire him with your love. Let him see the true reward for which he fights – your own self, his bride-to-be. If he wins, he is a free man, and what then? He can purchase your own freedom, and together you can live in sweet liberty. For I, myself, will put at his disposal the necessary funds, a tribute to his valour and loyalty! See, he raises his head, feeling returns to his eyes! His master offers him release – rush to him, ma petite, show him the greater prize within his reach! Animate him, then, renew his valorous ardour! But quickly, quickly – go!” Ah, to capture forever the feeling in those glorious eyes! The fear, the amazement, the light of dawning hope, the springing tears of gratitude. She cries: “Oh, mass’!” and seizes my hand, pressing those tender lips upon it. “Oh, bless you, mass’!” My emotion is not to be described as, with a last look of adoration, she leaves me to hasten to her lover’s side. Richard is urging him to the stage by main force, Spicer is pouring earnest instruction into his ear, and it is not for a slave-wench to intrude, but she calls to him, he sees her, and as she raises a slender hand I hear her voice shrill above the hubbub: “Free, Tom! Oh, Tom, free! You an’ me, Tom! Free!” She is exalted, weeping, heedless of the guffaws and obscene sallies of the onlookers. Tom’s vacant brute stare is turned on her, and as I see his bleeding mouth close like a trap and his indescribable features set in a mask of fury, I permit myself a moment of congratulation. If freedom is not sufficient inspiration to his dull mind, I have given him a little more. Perhaps the little that will turn the scale. As he sets a foot on the stage, Spicer restrains him, and only in time, for the Black Ghost rushes at him like a steam train, his huge fists whirling like windmills. Spicer holds him still, and the Ghost, screaming with rage, gives back, beckoning him with taunts and curses, while the mob hurl abuse, deriding his cowardice. Spicer releases his hold with a sharp command: “Left, mind – an’ break away!” The Ghost leaps to the attack, and out darts the left fist of Tom, full in the ogre’s face. Tom retreats, the Ghost lunges, and again the left fist checks his rush – and again, and again, and yet again, and with each blow Tom moves away, while the spectators cry with astonishment at each stroke, the Black Ghost howls in fury and clubs in vain at his retreating antagonist, and the little Spicer clutches the edge of the stage crying: “Circle, circle, keep away! Left ’and, left ’and!” The onlookers are beside themselves with amazement and anger. This is not what they wish to see. This marches not at all. What, their champion, in full strength, held at bay? The poor victim, with his broken right hand dangling useless at his side, whom they had looked to see mangled and crippled for their delight, fighting at a distance, immune from the frenzied swings of the conqueror? They scream and curse, urging the Ghost to destroy the upstart, and the Ghost, maddened beyond endurance, rushes in wildly – to be met by that rapier fist, now on his temple, now on his eyes, now on his jaw, but ever checking his advance while his blows fall on empty air. And I note, and marvel at, a phenomenon I have not seen since I left England. Obedient to the commands of Spicer, Tom delivers his blows and at once retires, back or to the side as seems best, in ungainly fashion. But as Spicer continues to cry: “Circle, circle!” his gait changes, as though by some instinct in his primitive brain. His heels lift, he moves on his toes, his shuffle becomes a dance, he finds a rhythm, his body sways from side to side. The Ghost must follow, screaming like a thing bereft of reason, rushing and flailing, only to encounter the relentless impact of that unerring fist. You may know, or you may not, the potency of the blow that I describe. To the ignorant, it appears feeble enough, a stroke of defence to keep the attacker away. And so it is, but it is more. Not for nothing do the Fancy call it “the pride of British boxing”. Oh, a Mendoza or a Belcher, had such been pitted against Tom that night, would have blocked and countered with ease, but the Black Ghost knows nothing of such arts. He is helpless against it, and learns the lesson that every prize-fighter knows, that the straight left hand, darting home again and again, is a fatal weapon of attack. From the trained man, striking with full power of body and shoulder behind the blow, never losing his balance, it is of stunning effect, sapping the strength of the victim, a stinging snake that robs him not only of vitality of body, but of mind also. Tom is a mere novice, but against such a mindless animal his clumsy science suffices. Thanks doubtless to the tuition of Spicer, he has found the equivalent of the secret botte, that mythical thrust of fence which no swordsman can parry. But whence the instinct comes that prompts him to move in a rude semblance of what the Ring calls footwork, the shifting dance of the true pugilist, who can tell? For the many, it is learned by patient instruction and practice. To him I believe it is a gift of God. Twice that night it betrays him. Once, slow to retreat, he is caught by a sweeping blow which fells him, but by good fortune the Ghost stumbles also, and Tom escapes. Again, missing with his left fist, he loses balance and is seized by those terrible hands. Let the Ghost but reach his throat, and all is lost, but in his unreasoning blood-lust the monster claws with his nails, and Tom wrenches free, his cheeks ploughed as though by talons. And now the pendulum swings. The pounding left fist has done its work. The flesh about the Ghost’s right eye is so swollen that it obscures his vision. In vain he twists his head, in vain tries to shield his other eye from that probing torment. Again and again the deadly fist strikes home, and now it is Tom who advances with each blow, and the Ghost who retreats. He cowers and cries out, his arms thrash in aimless fashion, he paws at the bloody mask of his face. But he cannot clear his sight, and there is no second to lance his engorged cheeks. The onlookers exclaim with savage delight – he is blind! Helpless he totters, and the cruel glee of the patrons knows no bounds as they urge Tom to destroy the tortured Cyclops. They bound to their feet, they rave and curse with the aspect of fiends. I see the whore of Blenkinsop, her comely little face distorted to that of a Medusa, her teeth bared and gnashing, her slim fingers rending her fan to shreds. At each blow her body shudders in ecstasy and she screams with laughter. Blenkinsop lounges and lights a fresh cigar, regarding the slaughter of his creature with sullen indifference. Richard is mad with excitement, beating his fists upon his knees as he bellows his triumph. Mollybird crouches beneath the stage, her hands clasped and her eyes closed, a charming study of maidenly devotion. Spicer shouts a sharp command, and Tom directs his blows at the Ghost’s body. They fall on the breast, the stomach, the groin, the kidneys, and the flanks. The Ghost wails in agony, falling to his knees. He rises, and is struck down again, and yet again. He crawls to the limit of the stage, imploring Blenkinsop, whom he can no longer see, to end his anguish. “Mass’ Bob, Mass’ Bob, make ’im stop! Cain’t see, Mass’ Bob! Ah’s beat – mercy on me, Mass’ Bob! Please, please, mass’!” Tom, exhausted by his efforts, sinks to his knees and looks to Spicer. I note with interest the conduct of this English sailor. He frowns, and walks rapidly to Blenkinsop, plucking from his waist the blood-stained rag with which he sponged Tom’s wounds. He presents it, but for Blenkinsop it has no meaning. He knows nothing of the pugilist’s token of surrender. He calls instead to his drivers, who leap to the stage and lash the fallen Ghost with their whips, goading him to resume the contest. He tries to rise but cannot. He falls on his back, his head lolling over the edge of the stage, his blood coursing to the ground from a face that is a face no longer but a hideous crimson sponge. Spicer casts down his cloth in anger, and nods to Tom to continue. Tom cannot rise. I see the great muscle a-flutter in his leg, and know that its use has deserted him for the moment. He pulls himself to the side of the Black Ghost, and gathers his strength for a last terrible blow directed at the upturned chin. Even through the din we hear the fearful crack as the spine is fractured at the neck, and as the Black Ghost’s head hangs limp a deafening yell of delight rises from a thousand throats. I bid Ganymede bring the girl Mollybird to my house, and make my way to my carriage. Butchery, however detestable, I can view with a dispassionate eye, but slobbering expressions of gratitude from cousin Richard, before such a Gadarene assembly, are not to be borne. * (#ulink_21023614-8399-52de-83fe-721389522f54) Waterloo SE?ORA MARGUERITE ROSSIGNOL, lady of fashion and independent means, Havana (#ulink_2638f34b-ce09-5655-9e34-ac72dea02676) Fact is, I don’t much care to remember. ’Deed, suh, you’d be astonished jus’ how good I can be at dis-rememberin’, specially when some ’quisitive stranger comes pokin’ his nose in my private affairs, wants to set it all down – for what? So you can lay an info’mation ’gainst me? Pouf! Not these days, mister, not in this town. La Senora Rossignol is re-spectable an’ respected, as my good friend the Alcalde can tell you. An’ I doubt he’d take kin’ly to any Paul Pry seekin’ scandal … to squeeze money out o’ prom’nent gennlemen, maybe? That ain’t your game? Well, then, I reckon you mus’ be one o’ those de-generates that get all tickled up havin’ a lady tell ’em the intimate de-tails of her past, from her own ruby lips. Brother, have I seen my fill o’ that sort! What some men’ll pay good dollars for … praise be. Not so, you say? Oh, my apologies. So, mister, jus’ what do you want? Tom Molineaux? Me’ciful heavens! An’ what in cree-ation is he to you, may I ask? A subject of his-toric interest? My, my! Tom got called plenty in his time, but that’s a noo one. An’ why might you s’pose I know anythin’ of his-toric interest ’bout him, or would tell you if I did? Ah-h … you been talkin’ to Lucie de la Goddam Guise! Well, I trust you scrubbed real well with carbolic aft’wards. Pouf ! An’ you want my side o’ the story? Tom’s story, you mean? Well, perhaps I don’t choose to tell. Why should I? Your pardon? You are prepared to make me a gen’rous onner … say it again, if you please … Honorarium? Suh, if that is some noo kind of European perversion, I’d be ’bliged if you’d tell me what it means, in simple American … Payment? For tellin’ you ’bout Tom Molineaux? Now, that I cannot believe! See here, my friend, if you have been overhearin’ loose talk an’ have called ’pon me for some pu’pose you are too bashful to confide straight out … well, I ’ppreciate the flatterin’ attention, but madam is not inclined these days, an’ if I was, believe me, you couldn’t afford it. No, suh. I am not in need of capital, as you can see. Yonder coffee service is English sterlin’ silver, my gown is pure China silk, f’m Paris, France – well, I thank you for the charmin’ compliment – these fine furnishin’s an’ pictures an’ all is bought an’ paid for, as is the house; my maid, cook, an’ footman ain’t owed one red cent in wages, an’ there is a drivin’ carriage, with canopy, an’ two horses in my stable, which you are kin’ly welcome to view – on your way out. Unless you choose to state your real business. Jus’ so we und’stand one another. My stars! You were not bammin’ jus’ now? You truly want to know ’bout that Tom? Well, that does beat all! Whatever for? I’d not ha’ thought he was o’ that much account. No one ever cared for him, hardly …’cept me, an’ I knew no better. He made a name in England? Now, you do s’prise me. Oh, prize-fightin’ … uh-huh, I guess he was good at that, if little besides. Well, it makes no neverminds what he did in England. He surely did hurt enough in America, him an’ that … No, I b’lieve I do not care to remember. My recollections are of the first impo’tance to you? Well, now, I can’t think why they should be … oh, fo’give me if I smile, only I wonder do you know ’zackly what you are askin’? My recollections? La-la! My good suh, they are not what you are ’ccustomed to read in the ladies’ journals. You ’ppreciate that, you say? Well, I ’ppreciate your candour, I mus’ say! No, do not apologise. Like I said, we und’stand each other. Well, now … I may not care to remember – but I do. ’Tis not the kind of thing a woman forgets, try how she may. Still, ’twill do no harm to tell now, I guess. I got over that mis’ry a long time ago, even if it did break my heart in pieces at the time … I had a heart in those days. So long ago … at Amplefo’th … when I was young in the sunshine … Oh, damn him! An’ damn that worm de la Guise! You wouldn’t b’lieve I could still feel the pain! Well, I don’t –’til some ’quisitive body plagues me to think on it! I beg your pardon, suh. I fo’get myself. Quite in’scusable, what must you think? You have called ’pon me to make an inquiry, in genteel style, an’ my outbu’st was most unbecomin’. Would you have the kindness to pour me a glass of sherry f’m the cellarette yonder – an’ kindly help yourself to refreshment. There is French brandy, an’ aquavit’, an’ such. Jus’ the smallest trifle … I thank you. Now, let me collect my thoughts. H’m, my recollections. Well, you shall have ’em plain, an’ if they offend your delicate feelin’s … why, you shouldn’t ha’ come. First thing, Tom Molineaux was a born fool. Strong in the arm, weak in the head, denser’n Mississippi mud. Even when I was little, I could see he had no mo’ sense’n an ox. He was willin’ an’ kin’ly enough, an’ I guess I took to him ’cos he took to me. Used to follow me ’round like a great hound puppy, f’m as early as I can remember. He was older’n me, but we used to play together, an’ I had to show him how, at our games an’ ev’ythin’. The older slave-childer used to make game of him, ’til he got bigger – an’ then the boys took no more liberties with him, you bet, for he was prodigious strong an’ could whip ’em three, four at a time. Yes, suh, he was one big likely nigger buck, an’ ripe as a stud bull! Oh, my, I trust you will pardon the ’spression. Recollectin’, I fall back into the common way o’ speech. But that is what he was. ’Twas natural the gals all set their caps at him, an’ he was fool enough to pay ’em heed, an’ had his way with all o’ them, but it was me he cared for always. “You my own true love, li’l Mollybird,” he used to say. “True love!”, I declare! Where he learned such words, I cannot ’magine. But he meant it, so far’s he had sense to mean anythin’, an’ I b’lieved him. One reason why he admired me to worship was I looked so different from the other wenches. They were common nigras, but I was what they called high yaller – yellow, you know, on ’ccount o’ my white blood, an’ fine-boned an’ dainty. Ah, I was the sweetest, neatest little gold fairy you ever did see – well, I am not ’zackly plain in my prime, would you say, so you can imagine. The master’s daddy, old Molineaux, used to call me Princess, never Mollybird, which is a real low plantation-wench name, if you like. Not my style at all, which is why I am Marguerite Rossignol, in case you wonderin’. Molly Nightingale, in French – Molly Bird. So the older an’ prettier I grew, the more Tom mooned after me, an’ I dare say I used him somethin’ shameful, as gals will. He was so in awe of me, an’ the white people made me such a pet, he never dreamed to treat me like the nigra wenches. Once, when I’s ’bout twelve, an’ he was maybe sixteen, I teased him on to kiss me, an’ like the born fool he was, he bragged ’bout it, and when old Molineaux heard, he was in such a takin’ he had Tom triced up an’ lashed ’til he couldn’t walk. They told me I was never to even talk to him after, an’ kept me in the big house in a chamber of my own, with a bed an’ coverlet. Oh, I thought ’twas heaven! That was how precious I was. Can you ’magine, it devoted Tom to me more than ever? An’ I cannot think why, now, but I do believe it was bein’ kept away f’m him that caused me to fall in love with him. I would see him starin’ at my window nights, an’ lookin’ so melancholy, an’ ev’yone knew he hadn’t made so much as a whimper when they whipped him. I yearned for him then, as only a young girl can, ugly as sin tho’ he was. Well, the other bucks were no better, or near so strong an’ fine-bodied as Tom, an’ what other men had I seen? It seems foolish now, but for three years I was in love with Tom Molineaux. You think that hard to b’lieve? You see me here, the elegant lady of colour in her stylish salon, with her Paris gown an’ fine complexion an’ delicate airs, an’ conversin’ in that husky way the gennlemen so adore, ole-plantation-an’-la-m’dear – you s’pose I was this smart an’ wo’ldly when I was fifteen? Pouf! I had no mo’ sense’n a chicken. I was a simple little wench, an’ Tom Molineaux was big an’ strong an’ kin’ly and gentle to me as if I was a ewe lamb. An’ I loved him, strange an’ all as it seems now. I have had some ’sperience o’ the world since, and of men, an’ I am no longer simple, but I am here to tell you that when a strong, brave man is fit to be tied for love of you, he is powerful hard to resist … when you are fifteen. Would you be so kind as to make a long arm for that brandy on the cellarette? I have a fancy to somethin’ mo’ strengthenin’ than sherry … deeply ’bliged. Where was I? Ah, yes, it was when old Molineaux died that Master Richard made Tom a “fightin’ nigra” an’ began to match him ’gainst the bucks f’m other estates. I know nothin’ of such things, but all the talk was that Tom was the meanest fellow with his fists in the whole Dominion, an’ I was mighty proud of him, tho’ I never saw him fight until … that night in Awlins. I didn’t know what nigger-fightin’ was, hardly, but I was glad for Tom, an’ Master Richard makin’ much of him, pettin’ him an’ givin’ him fancy clothes an’ sayin’ he would be the mos’ famous slave in the Southland. Mos’ nigras would ha’ put on airs ’bove theirselves to be so tret by their masters, but not Tom. Truth to tell, he didn’t have the gumption to get above hisself; he was jus’ quiet, dull Tom as ever, an’ I was the only thing could bring a light to his eye an’ a smile to that big, ugly nigra face. Young Master Richard saw how ’twas with us, and gave Tom the freedom o’ my company – an’ only my company. “You want to pleasure yo’self, they’s wenches a-plenty in the cabins,” says Master Richard. “Mollybird she pure, an’ stay that way. Maybe one o’ these days, I let you have her, when yo’ champeen nigra fighter of America. How you like that, Mollybird? You like this big go-alonger for yo’ man?” He would laugh as he said it, and cuff Tom’s woolly head, and Tom would grin an’ shuffle an’ look on me like I was the Queen o’ Sheba. I was grown enough to toss my head and look sidelong an’ say nothin’, like the white misses on their verandas, tho’ I hardly knew what Master Richard meant ’bout Tom havin’ me, or bein’ my man. Oh, I knew what he an’ the other bucks did with the wenches in the cabins, but I was the li’l Princess an’ far above the doin’s of the common slaves. My love fo’ Tom was different; I yearned to have him with me, ’cos he was big an’ brave an’ would never let harm come to me, and if you’d asked me what I meant by lovin’ him, I couldn’t ha’ said more’n that. I was innocent an’ foolish an’ fifteen, an’ thought in fairytales. Nowadays I lay no claim to innocence or gi’lish folly, am three times as old, an’ the only fairytales I read come in yellow covers … but I still can explain no better what I felt for Tom, then. Maybe it was true love, like he said. Heigh-ho … yes, I think jus’ a wee touch more brandy would be acceptable, when I come to think back on that night in Awlins. Master Richard had brought this little sailor-man to Amplefo’th, to brisk Tom up for ’nother fight, ’gainst a nigra called the Black Ghost. Ev’yone allowed it would be Tom’s sternest trial yet, an’ the sailor-man goaded him on to run an’ leap over rails an’ split kindlin’, with Master Richard fussin’ an’ runnin’ after them, an’ the sailor-man cryin’: “It’s his legs, guv’nor! Got to make them legs like mainmasts!” I remember he said that, over an’ over, in that cracky English voice. I didn’t know what a mainmast was, or what jumpin’ an’ splittin’ wood had to do with prize-fightin’. I jus’ found it all mighty amusin’, but Tom didn’t care for it. The sailor-man made him a big sack o’ corn-husks an’ bark, an’ Tom had to whale at it with his fists, an’ he liked that well. Master Richard had me down to the yard to watch him beat the sack, an’ when Tom flagged, Master would point to me an’ whisper in his ear, an’ Tom would lay into the sack till it bu’st wide open. Lord, what a lovin’ fool he was! An’ I would clap an’ cheer him on, an’ feel the butterflies inside me as I looked on those splendid limbs a-gleam in the sunlight. Yes, suh, indeed. You are f’miliar, I don’ doubt, with those Greek an’ Roman statues which are thought to show the ab-solute p’fection of the male form? I have viewed them, too, as well as – you may set this down – a great many livin’ examples also, an’ I am here to tell you that Tom Molineaux’s was the most beautiful human body I have ever seen. M’m-h’m! Oh, his features were homely, like I said – fact, I can’t recall many uglier – but that frame o’ his was fit to melt a gal’s legs f’m under. Talk ’bout heroic! Bein’ young an’ simple at the time, I did not rec’nise the feelin’ I was feelin’ then, tho’ I can put a name to it now … but I shan’t. Jus’ say that if I’d been Queen Cle-o-patra an’ seen him up fo’ auction, the other bidders would ha’ gone home dis’pointed. It was that time Master Richard hinted ’bout Tom an’ me bein’ wed. Maybe he meant it, I can’t tell. Mos’ folks would say the reason he an’ old Molineaux had been at such pains to keep a beautiful high-yaller gal virgin, was so they could get a real fancy price fo’ her when she bloomed, ’round sixteen – seventeen, but I don’ know ’bout that. They looked down their V’ginia noses at nigra-traders, so I can’t be sure what they intended by me. All I know is what Master Richard said, an’ I was the happiest l’il chucklehead in the state. An’ then the snake came wrigglin’ in. M’sieur Lucie d’Estrees de la Goddam Guise, with his silk coat an’ gold-topped cane an’ eye-glass, fingerin’ his dandy moustache an’ scented like a female. He was Master Richard’s cousin, an’ we stopped at his fine house out by Pontchartrain the day before Tom’s fight in Awlins. I was called to be shown off to him, an’ had to hide my laughter, for I had ne’er seen such a picture of a popinjay, so bedecked an’ ruffled an’ languid fit to die. He looked old to me, so I guess he was forty, maybe, an’ when he called me close to pet me I was still strugglin’ not to laugh right out. Then I saw his eyes, an’ my laughter died inside me. They were sleepy and chill, an’ as they looked me over, with that mean smile on his pretty little mouth, I fell a-tremble with fear, an’ felt shamed and unclean somehow, to be so regarded. He stroked my cheek with his soft fingers all scented with rings on ’em, an’ it was as though a slimy critter was leavin’ its track on my skin. When he said, in that lispin’ voice, how pretty I was, an’ slipped a candy in my mouth, I near gagged it out, an’ when he asked Master Richard what my price was, an’ Master Richard said I wasn’t for sale, I near swooned with relief. I could think of nothin’ more horrible than to be owned by that mincin’ exquisite with his gentle voice an’ clammy touch and evil eyes. I didn’t know why he was wicked, or why his gaze defiled me; I just knew he was vile in ways I couldn’t understand. You don’t need me, thank God, to describe Tom’s fight with the Black Ghost, an’ I would not if I could. To me, a child, it was a first glimpse into Hell, with a chorus of yellin’ fiends transpo’ted in cruel delight as they watched my love bein’ tortured an’ mangled by that monster. I stopped my ears an’ eyes, an’ thought I must go mad, an’ when I saw his poor body broke an’ dyin’ (as I thought) on the ground, I threw myself on him wishin’ only that I might die with him. Worst of all was to hear his own master, who I s’posed loved an’ cared for him, threaten to have him killed by inches, an’ to see Tom, all bloodied an’ beaten, drag himself up again to be sacrificed. Then the serpent de la Guise came whisperin’ at my ear, lispin’ of freedom for Tom an’ me, an’ how I might put spirit in him. Between my crazy grief an’ wild hope I did as he bid me, with no thought of my fear an’ loathin’ of him. An’ Tom won, I can’t say how, for I could not bear to see it. Then I knew such joy – for he was free an’ would make me free also. I would have blessed de la Guise an’ kissed his foot in gratitude, but he went quickly away. Ganymede, who was de la Guise’s yellow valet, put me in a carriage with Tom, to take us back to de la Guise’s house, for Master Richard was in such an ecstasy at his vict’ry that he must stay behind to celebrate, I s’pose, with his cronies an’ such. I didn’t care; I was with Tom, weepin’ for happiness as I kissed his awful wounds an’ comforted him, tellin’ him of de la Guise’s promise, an’ how we would be free together – I, who hardly knew what freedom meant. Even Tom, dull Tom, knew more of it than I, for he put his great strong arm, with its cruelly broken hand, ’bout me, an’ kept sayin’ over an’ over: “Free! Free! Free! Oh, li’l Mollybird, you my own woman now! My li’l princess, my true love!” Yes, if there has been a moment in my life to call blessed, it was then, in that carriage rumblin’ home to Pontchartrain, an’ freedom. They took Tom to the slave quarters to tend to his hurts, an’ Ganymede gave me in charge of a tall mulatto woman who I guess was chatelaine. She turned me this way an’ that, sniffed at my cotton dress an’ old shoes as unfittin’, and asked real cold when I’d bathed last. ’Twas only then, I think, that it came home to me that I was de la Guise’s slave now, an’ I shivered to think on’t, ’til I remembered how kind he’d been at that awful fight. I was more scared of the mulatto woman’s sour face an’ bony hands, an’ the big bunch of keys she carried like a jailer. She gave me over to two black maids in dimitty dresses an’ caps, such as I’d never seen, an’ they took me upstairs to a room with a big bath on a tiled floor, an’ washed me all over with scented suds. I felt like a princess then, an’ thought I must be dreamin’, in that wondrous house with its great hall an’ sweepin’ staircase an’ lovely paintin’s an’ carpets an’ marble columns such as I’d never ’magined. Why, I’d never seen a bathroom before, let alone thought to use one. Amplefo’th had seemed a palace, but it was a shack to this place, with all its luxur’ous appointments an’ gilt furniture. It made me feel small an’ frightened, ’til I remembered Tom was free, an’ de la Guise would let him make me free, too. After the maids had dried me I asked for my clothes, an’ they snickered into their aprons an’ said there was a fire in the room where I was to be taken. “You ain’t goin’ need no clo’es tonight awhile, li’l honey gal,” says one. “Nor no night-rail, neether.” “But don’ fret yo’self,” says t’other maid. “You’ll get plenny silk dresses by’n’by, an’ ribbons an’ fal-lals, sho’ ’nuff !” When I saw the bed-chamber I was left speechless, it was so grand an’ tasteful, in the loveliest soft colours, peach an’ pink an’ ivory, with a mighty four-post bed hung in silks, and mirrors ev’ywhere, so that I was put out to see myself bare wherever I looked, an’ pulled the sheet from the bed ’round me. The mulatto woman came in, an’ slapped me for makin’ free with the sheet, an’ bid the maids put it back. Now I was real scared, an’ like to cry when she pulled me by the arm to a little window in the wall. “Stand there,” says she, an’ slapped me again. “Keep yo’ eyes open an’ yo’ mouth shet, or ’twill be the wuss for you, ye heah?” I shook like a willow, for fear an’ ’mazement as I looked through the window into another room that was set much lower in the house so that I was lookin’ down into it, an’ the folks in it were ’way beneath me. There was de la Guise layin’ at his ease in a silk dressin’-gown on a chaise longue, smokin’ his cigar, but what robbed me o’ breath was the two white ladies on a couch nearby. One was yellow-haired an’ t’other red, an’ they were painted an’ patched to admiration. I had never seen anythin’ in the world so grand an’ beautiful an’ stylish. I thought they mus’ be real princesses, or queens even, an’ couldn’t think why they didn’t wear hardly any clothes at all. I’d never seen white ladies near naked before, an’ was wonder-struck to see ’em so pretty an’ soft ’neath their clothes. The room itself was sumptuous, with walls lined with gold satin, an’ furniture looked soft enough to sink into. There were paintin’s on the walls of more lovely white ladies, an’ near the fireplace smaller pictures of white men half-naked, standin’ in poses with their hands raised as I’d seen Tom stand when the sailor-man had been ’structin’ him. There was the sweetest smell of perfume, and I remember thinkin’ (God help me!) that Heaven must look somethin’ like that room, an’ angels like those painted ladies. Then a door opened down there, an’ my heart leaped, for it was Tom, with that Ganymede. They had washed him clean of blood, an’ though there was a plaster on his cheek an’ on his brow that was swollen, an’ his right hand was bandaged, it was a joy to see him walk steady an’ like his old self. He was taken all aback to see the ladies there, an’ I could have blushed to see them sit up smilin’ on the couch, showin’ off their bosoms before a coloured man, so bold. Tom stood confused an’ put down his head, but I could see him givin’ them a shot of his eye sidelong. De la Guise rose, very languid, an’ looked at him, an’ poor Tom stood mum, but couldn’t keep from watchin’ the white ladies. “Well, Tom Molineaux,” says de la Guise, “so you are a free man now. And right nobly you have earned your freedom. Who taught you this, eh?” An’ he let drive his left hand an’ hit Tom smack on the mouth, an’ laughed. Tom made a mumble, an’ de la Guise said he had been well ’structed, but had much to learn. “How will you live now that you are free?” asks he. “Will you be a prize-fighter?” “Yes, mass’,” mutters Tom. I could hardly hear him. “But here you may fight only black men like yourself,” says de la Guise. “Crude animals like the one you killed tonight.” ’Twas the first I’d heard of the Black Ghost bein’ killed, an’ I gave a little cry. The mulatto woman twisted my hair an’ hissed at me like a cat to quiet me. “If you aspire to be a true boxer, you must fight white men, and you can do that only in England, which is the home of the Noble Art.” I doubt Tom had heard of England, for he was dumb. Then de la Guise showed him the little pictures on the wall, sayin’ that these were the great English champions. He called off their names, but I don’t recall them, except one that stayed in my mind because it didn’t sound English, but now bein’ f’miliar with Spanish names, I b’lieve it was one such. “Why, that man is half your size and weight,” cries de la Guise. “But he could cut you to pieces in moments!” Tom looked at the picture an’ growled somethin’ I couldn’t hear, an’ de la Guise laughed an’ claps his shoulder. “Wait until you face such a man, you’ll learn different. But do you know, Tom, whenever that man fights he makes one thousand dollars? Sometimes two thousand, five thousand, even. Why, in England they think more of him than of their King! You know what a king is, Tom?” “Like in stories mammy tells,” grunts Tom. “Exactly so! Tom, you could fight like that man. You are strong and brave and supple. But you could learn only in England. Would you care to go to England, Tom?” I could tell, from the jeerin’ way he said it, an’ the smile on those plump lips, that he was makin’ game of him. “If mass’ say,” mumbles Tom, an’ de la Guise laughed, mockin’. “No, no, Tom, if you say! Why, you are free, and your own master. Would you like to live high, and do as you pleased, ride in a carriage, wear fine clothes, like this robe of mine – feel, Tom, how smooth it is.” Tom touched the robe like it was red hot, an’ de la Guise spoke soft. “You could have white ladies, Tom, like these.” He fluttered a hand, an’ the two ladies got up an’ walked over ever so lazy-like. One stood before Tom, smilin’ an’ poutin’, an’ t’other came beside him an’ put a hand on his shoulder, an’ they fairly did languish at him. I could not believe my eyes, white ladies with a coloured man. “Do you like them, Tom?” says de la Guise. “I believe they like you very much. Eh, my dears?” The ladies began to pet Tom an’ caress him, an’ the yellow-haired one was strokin’ his arm, exclaimin’ how strong he was, an’ the other kissed his mouth an’ clung to him. I was sick to my stomach to see white ladies so demean themselves, but de la Guise laughed and said he must not fear them, for they admired him and yearned to give him pleasure. Tom began to shake an’ stare like a wild thing, an’ then they left plaguin’ him an’ de la Guise asked him again if he liked white ladies. Tom stood dumb, gaspin’ and all a-tremble, an’ de la Guise struck him in the face to make him answer. “Reckon so, mass’,” says Tom, shakin’ fit to die. “Better than your little Mollybird?” asks de la Guise, an’ my heart went cold as he glanced up at my window. Then he nodded to the ladies, an’ they came close to Tom again, pesterin’ an’ cooin’ like doves. “Surely not?” says de la Guise. “She is waiting for you, Tom, in this house. Come with me now, and you may take her away, free, the two of you. I promised her you should have the money for her purchase.” Oh, that soft, lispin’ voice might have belonged to the fiend that tempted Jesus. “Or, if you please, you may stay here awhile with the white ladies. Choose, Tom. Which shall it be? One or the other. Sweet little Mollybird, or these loving white ladies?” The mulatto woman had my hair in her grip, an’ a bony hand ’cross my mouth to stifle my cry. ’Twas like a nightmare as I heard de la Guise repeat that vile, evil offer, an’ through my tears I could only watch helpless as Tom, the poor mindless fool, went where his blind lust took him, an’ let those white harlots embrace him an’ draw him down unresistin’ on their couch. Must I tell you what I suffered in that moment? I think not. To say my heart broke – what does it mean? Yet ’tis all there is to say. Mollybird began to die in that moment, Mollybird the simple, trustin’ little yellow gal. She’s been dead many, many years now, her an’ her broken heart, an’ Senora Marguerite Rossignol, who has no heart, can say: what use to blame Tom Molineaux for bein’ what he was? You’d as well blame a baby for crawlin’ to a shiny toy. ’Twas no real choice that temptin’ toad offered him, ’cos like a baby he didn’t have a mind to choose with. Only a body. I remember crouchin’ by the bed, with the fire so hot to one side o’ me, an’ all cold on t’other, an’ then de la Guise was in the room, speakin’ to the mulatto woman. “She saw and heard? Everything? Oh, excellent!” He went across to the little window, an’ stood lookin’ down, an’ gave a little yelp of laughter. Then he turned to the mulatto. “Presently, have Ganymede pay those two, and put that animal into the street. Now go. I am not to be disturbed.” He came an’ stood over me, still smilin’ with those hateful snake’s eyes, an’ nibblin’ at his lip. I was too numb with mis’ry to think even, let alone wonder that any man could be so cruel as make me see what I had seen. “Poor little golden nymph,” says he in that jeerin’ lispin’ voice. “So exquisite. So forlorn. Beauty, abandoned by the Beast. What would you? A brute has the appetites of a brute. But can she guess, I wonder, how great a favour the Beast has done to Beauty? What would freedom have brought her, with such a creature? What would her fate have been, eh?” He bid me rise, an’ I was too broke in despair to disobey, or even to shrink when he began to stroke my lips an’ cheek with those soft slug fingers. Then he bid me walk ’cross to the door, an’ back again, watchin’ me with that gloatin’ smile. “Perfection,” says he, sighin’, an’ took my hands an’ kissed them, an’ at that I began to cry an’ shake with fear at last, an’ begged him to let me be, an’ he began to laugh. That, I think, is as much as I care to remember for you. No more is necessary, for I have told you all that I know of Tom Molineaux. The transfo’mation of Mollybird into Senora Rossignol, by that scented vermin de la Guise an’ others, I am happy to leave to your ’magination. He was right, of course. I should be grateful to Tom. If he’d been true to Mollybird, there’d ha’ been no elegant coloured lady, with her fine house an’ servants an’ carriage an’ all, inquirin’ of a gennleman visitor if he would care to partake of a service of aft’noon tea an’ pastries … If you’d be so kind as to draw the bell-rope yonder … ? CAPTAIN BUCKLEY (“MAD BUCK”) FLASHMAN, late of the 23rd Light Dragoons (#ulink_8037f08d-1376-5f3e-8ad4-c92ad8be02c8) Black? What black? Ah, Molineaux, the fellow who gave Cribb pepper and a half … that black. Should think I do remember him. Made a rare packet of rhino out o’ the brute, cost old Crocky and Jew King a fortune, wept all the road to Jerusalem, ha-ha! Aye, a sound investment, Black Tom, knew it the moment I clapped eyes on him, at the old Nag and Fish – the Horse and Dolphin, (#litres_trial_promo) you must know it, in St Martin’s Street as you come off Leicester Square … no? Gone now, I dare say, but ’twas there I launched Tom on the road to Fistic Fame, as Egan would say, for ’twas my word that swayed Richmond, no doubt o’ that. It was his ken in those days, where the sporting set was used to play cricket in the back field … oh, Alvanley, Sefton, poor old Berkeley Craven (blew his brains out over the ’36 Derby, affected ass), Mellish, Webster, God knows who. I played a single-wicket match there once against Byron, the late poet. Odd fish, bit his nails, wore curl papers in bed to give his manly locks the romantic twist, got in a fearful wax ’cos I called him Sleeping Beauty … not a bad bowler, mind; not in Brummell’s parish, but too good for me. No, boxing was my game – and milord Byron wasn’t up to my snuff there, I can tell you, gamecock though he was. Small wonder. Why, I was the best amateur miller of the day, bar Barclay Allardice. I floored Cribb … once. Shan’t tell you what he did to me … Did I know Molineaux? Good God, man, I told you I remember him, but one don’t know that sort of specimen. Nigger pugs, what next? Anyway, what the devil is he to you, whoever you are? Who let you in here, for that matter? You ain’t a patient, are you? Or one o’ those damned mealy brain-scrubbers? No … you don’t have the style to be barmy, and not sly enough for a pill-slinger … damn them all … Ah, the Superintendent let you in, did he? And said you might talk to me? Burn his blasted impudence, never asked my leave – who the dooce does he think he is, my keeper? Aye … that’s precisely what he does think, rot him. Well, let me tell you, sir, that my apartments are not to let, like most of ’em. I am one of a select band of gentlemen resident in this charming rural establishment because we have lost the battle with delirium tremens – temporarily, I hasten to add – and are in need of a breather between rounds, so to speak. We are here of our own free will, at exorbitant rates, have the freedom of the grounds, do not consort with the loonies, and … I say, you don’t happen to have a drop of anything with you, I suppose? Flask, bottle, demijohn, something of the sort? Ah, pity. We might have spent a convivial hour discussing thingummy … Molineaux, did you say? Interesting aborigine, that … don’t suppose there’s a man in England could tell you more of his doings, in and out o’ the green fairy circle, than I … oh, the old pugs, to be sure, but their wits are addled, and fellows like Egan and Hazlitt would just rap a deal of romantic nonsense. They don’t know the story of Barclay’s gloves, or Joe Ward and the bullets, or how that ass Sefton came within an ace of challenging Prinny to a duel – yes, over Molineaux, I do assure you – or the indiscretions of Lady … ah, but we shan’t mention names, what would they say at Almack’s? Yes, we could have had a jolly prose together … but I cannot abide dry discourse, what? So, good day to you … don’t roll your eyes or laugh too loud on the way out or they’ll clap you in the comic box before you can say “Bender!” Adieu, adieu … What’s that? You could call again after luncheon … with a spot o’ lush, no doubt. My dear fellow, what a capital notion. Put ’em in separate pockets so that they don’t clink … the attendants here have ears like dago guerrillas, ’tis like being in the blasted Steel … Better still, tell you what – see down yonder, past the trees, there’s a gap in the fence that our turnkeys haven’t twigged yet, much frequented by the local mollishers – personable young females of loose conduct, sir, who disport themselves with us wealthier inmates, for a consideration. Gad, the state of the country! I shall be there at two, you can run the cargo in safety, and we shall not be espied or earwigged … Damn you, did I say two o’clock or did I not? Already? Gad, how time flies. Well, thank God you weren’t beforehand … You’d best be off, m’dear – here’s a guinea for you. Tomorrow at six, mind … There she trips, my village Titania … sweet seventeen and goes like a widow of fifty. Don’t look askance at me, sir, if you were in this bloody bastille you’d be glad of a tickletail yourself. Now, have you brought … oh, famous! Sir, you are a pippen of the first flight! Brandy, bigod, that’ll answer. Fix bayonets and form square, belly, the Philistines are upon thee … Ah-h-h! Aye, that’s the neat article. Sir, your good health … Now, tell me, how did you get my direction in the first place? My son? ’Pon my soul, that was uncommon condescending of him; he don’t use to oblige strangers, unless … didn’t lend him money, did you? You married? Ah, you have a sister … oh, charming fellow, absolutely, quite the military lion, too. Taking her to see the hippopotamus, is he … and then to Astley’s? I see … oh, couldn’t be in better hands. No need for you to race back to Town … Well, now, since we have time before us, I tell you what – ne’er mind questions, I’ll recollect, and you can take notes. Capital … Now, you’re too young, I take it, to remember London in the old days – in the French war, I mean, before the Regency? Just so. Well, if you’re to understand about Molineaux, and how he came to make such an almighty stir, and so forth, I must set you right about that time. ’Twas as different from today as junk from Offley’s beef. Free and easy and jolly, no one giving a dam, churches half-empty and hells packed full, fashion and frolic the occupations, and sport the religion. Boney might be master of the Continent, and Wellington hanging on by his eyelids in Spain, but they were the deuce of a long way from Hyde Park and the night cellars; the many-headed might be on short commons and the government in Queer Street, but when were they not, eh? A few sobersides fretted about morality and revolution, but since most o’ the country was three-parts drunk, nobody minded them. The Town was on the spree, and we were “on the Town”. Hard to swallow, eh, for your serious generation, taking your lead from our sedate young Queen, God bless her, and her pump-faced German noodle – ah, there’s the difference, in a nutshell! You have the muff Albert, God help you, pious, worthy, dull as a wet Sabbath and dressed like a dead Quaker; we had fat Prinny, boozy and cheery and chasing skirt, in the pink of fashion as cut by Scott and approved by Brummell. That’s the difference thirty years has made. Your statesmen don’t gamble or fight duels; there ain’t one trace-kicker among your Society women; royalty don’t fornicate or have turn-ups at coronations nowadays; and what noble lord trains a prize pug or flees to France with the duns in full cry? Where are your dandy Corinthian out-and-outers, dazzling the ton, sparring with the Black Beetles or charging Kellerman’s cavalry, breaking their necks over hedges, and all for the fun of it? Or your peep-o’-day Quality beauties, with their night-long parties, but fresh as daisies in Hyde Park by day? Or your high-flight Cyprians, rising by wit and beauty from nowhere to enchant the bucks and set the scandalised tea-cups rattling from Apsley House to Great Swallow Street? No, they wouldn’t suit in this stale age, for they were a different breed, male and female. I don’t see the like today of Moll Douglas or Caro Lamb, or Jane Harley – Lady Oxford to you, who had so many brats by assorted sires they called ’em the Harleian Miscellany – or dear Hetty Stanhope, even, who decamped to be a Turkish sultana, as I recall. Women had style, then, as well as beauty. And men today are so damned sane and proper, not like Camelford, who went to France in disguise to try to murder Napoleon, or Jack Lade who married a highwayman’s wench, or my chum Harry Mellish who locked Clarence in the roundhouse and once lost forty thousand pounds on the roll of a single dice, or the three Barrymores – Hellgate, Cripplegate, and Newgate, so Prinny called ’em, and their noble sister was Billingsgate, on account of her fishwife tongue. Aye, it was a different age, gone now – and good riddance, you may think. But if it was wild and reckless, it was alive, with spirits that England couldn’t accommodate today. It was ready for any kind of lark and freak, and to hail the likes of Tom Molineaux as a nine-day wonder. He wouldn’t be that nowadays, I can tell you. Not to the modern taste, any more than the bucks and beauties of his time would be. Why’s that, eh? I’ll tell you why your age is different, and staid, and settled. It’s ’cos you ain’t had a good war in years; you han’t peered into the abyss and looked death and ruin in the face. We did, with Europe under the Corsican’s boot, the French at our gate, and Old England on the lion’s lip. You may say now that the crisis was passed by ’10 or ’11, but we didn’t know it. We’d just seen the finest force that Britannia ever sent overseas, forty thousand strong, wrecked at Walcheren, and our battered Peninsulars being driven back to Portugal. The devil with it, we said, we’ll beat ’em yet, and whether we do or whether we don’t, we’ll eat, drink, and be merry, for ’tis all one. That’s why England was full of sin and impudence, then. No doubt you think our great concerns should ha’ been Boney, or the Luddites, or when the King, poor Old Nobbs, would lose the last of his wits (such as he had), and whether Prinny would bring in the Whigs. Those are the matters treated of by bookworms and historians and fellows of that sort, who regard ’em as the burning topics of the day. Not a bit of it. What d’ye think was the talk of the Town when I came back from the Peninsula in ’09? Aye, I was invalided home after Talavera – that was the excuse, leastways, but the fact was I’d fought four duels in three weeks, and Old Hooky wouldn’t stand it: swore I did our own side more harm than Victor. Damned sauce. I’d done the Frogs harm enough, and he knew it. Talavera … Gad, that was the day. Who’s heard of it now, the Spanish Waterloo, where the Peninsular war trembled in the balance? If we’d lost, Spain was lost, and perhaps the war; Wellesley would never ha’ been Wellington, that’s certain, and Boney would ha’ conquered Russia. Talavera … heat, and dust, and bloody bayonets. Wellington vowed it was the most desperate fight he’d ever seen, with Victor outnumbering us two to one – aye, we proved that one Briton was worth two Frogs, that day. Good men, though, those same Frogs – d’ye know, there was a truce in the midst of the battle, when we and they watered our beasts together in the Portina brook, and exchanged snuff and civilities? Old Villatte, who commanded their cavalry, was there, and offered “King” Allan of the Guards his flask. King sluiced his ivories and shook hands. “Thank’ee, mon general,” says King. “Hot day, ain’t it? Why don’t you go home?” “Apres vous, m’sieur,” grins old Villatte, and everyone burst out laughing, and our rankers and the French moustaches were swapping fills o’ their pipes, and we cheered each other back to the lines. Then they came at us like tigers, as only Frogs can, with “Old Trousers” thundering along a two-mile front, that huge mass of infantry tearing a great hole in our line. Fraser Mackenzie’s Midlanders held on like bulldogs, it was touch and go, and then Victor let drive at our left flank below the Medellin Hill, and I thought we was done for. “Now or never!” cries Anson. “Off you go, Ponsonby!” and away we went, 23rd Lights and German Legion, knee to knee against that huge tide of Froggy horse in the valley, with the trumpeters sounding charge. We were going full tilt when the hidden gully opened almost under our hooves, and “Hold on, Flash!” bawls Ponsonby, but my hunter was over it like a swallow, and the rest came jumping or tumbling after, and we went into their Green Chasseurs like a steel fist, sabres whirling and fellows going down like ninepins, such a turn-up as you never saw. There was a French square behind us, and great waves of their cavalry before, two hundred of our 23rd boys went down, but we scattered the Chasseurs, and then their Chevaux Legers and Polish Lancers broke over us like a tide, with those damned whistles in their helmets wailing like banshees. I took a lance in the leg and a cut on the neck – see here – but was holding my own till my poor little grey went down and some blasted Pole put a bullet through my sword-arm. Time’s up, Flash, thinks I, you won’t make scratch this time, for what was left of us was being trampled underfoot, but they took me prisoner, along with a few others, and I was exchanged next day, leaking like a cracked pot. But they hadn’t turned our flank, bigod, and our centre held, Froggy drew off with his bellyful, leaving seven thousand dead to our five thousand, Old Hooky ceased to be Wellesley and became Lord Wellington … and that was Talavera. You know what came of it … we lived to fight another day, Hooky withdrew to Portugal, foxed Massena with Torres Vedras, and held French armies in Spain that Boney could have used in Russia where he froze to death, France was beat – and all because the Light Brigade crossed that gully, perhaps. I like to think so, at all events; worth being skewered and trampled, what? In the meantime, I came home … now, where the devil was I, before you reminded me of the Peninsula? Ah, yes, I was asking what you supposed the buzz was in Town that autumn of ’09? The war? The King’s madness? The Cabinet? No such thing. The name on every lip wasn’t Talavera or Hooky or Boney, but Mary Clarke – and I’ll lay a million to a mag you never heard of her, eh? I thought not. Ah, Mary! She was the sweetest little nesting-bird, and my first love ’fore I went to Spain – well, one of ’em. Shape of Aphrodite, sassy as a robin, and devoted to the study of cavalry subalterns – when she wasn’t accommodating the Duke of York, that is. She was his prize pullet, you see, and we lesser lights (I was a mere cornet of horse then, but she was nuts on me) had to slip in at her back door in Gloucester Place like so many area sneaks. Gad, she was the bang-up Cyprian, though! Ten horses, three cooks, twenty servants, dined off a French duke’s plate, and entertained like a bashaw’s niece – York gave her a thousand a month, and you may believe ’twasn’t enough. So dear Mary set up shop selling Army promotions, slipping the tickets for York to sign when he was too lushy or baked with her fond attentions to notice, I dare say. Oh, a prime racket she had, until some parliamentary pimp blew the gaff. There was the devil to pay, York had to resign command of the Army, Mary was called to the Bar of the House and had ’em in fits with her sauce and sharp answers, and to crown all she threatened to publish York’s love-letters. I saw some of ’em, and they were hot-house stuff, I can tell you. Cost the old calf’s head ten thou’ and a pension of four hundred a year to buy ’em back. D’ye wonder that Mary Clarke was all the chat from St James’s to St Giles? Mere wars and Commons votes weren’t in it with her – or with Moll Douglas, the bird of paradise whom Mornington, Hooky’s brother, had in tow when he went out as Minister to Spain. That set the tongues wagging at Almack’s, for what made it worse was that Mornington’s lawful blanket wouldn’t divorce him or clear out of Apsley House. She’d been another bareback rider until Mornington married her; French piece, Gabrielle Hyacinthe de Something. Shocking taste in women he had. Whores, the lot o’ them. What’s this to do with Molineaux? Why, to impress upon you what a light-minded crew of sensation-seekers Society was, ripe for any novelty – female, criminal or sporting for choice – and because it pleases me to hold forth at length while sampling this excellent drop o’ short. So don’t dam’ well interrupt. We’ll come to the Dusky Miller presently. Speaking of sport, there was a mighty stink at Newmarket about that time, when two touts called Bishop and Dan Dawson were bribed to see that certain horses didn’t start, so they blew arsenic into the water troughs, poisoned I don’t know how many runners. They were grabbed, Bishop peached to save his neck, but it was the Paddington frisk for Danny, and half the turf set went down to Cambridge to see him drop, more than one noble lord, I’m told, heaving a sigh of relief when he died with his mouth shut. Not that politics was altogether neglected in the clubs and drawing-rooms. Why, the day I landed there was a disagreement in Cabinet. Foreign secretary, Canning, an intriguing toad, if you ask me, with an eye on Downing Street, blamed the war minister, Castlereagh, for the Walcheren fiasco, and Castlereagh demanded pistols for two on Putney Heath. The pair of cakes missed each other altogether with their first shots, tried again, Castlereagh put a slug in Canning’s leg, and Canning shot a button off his lordship’s coat. I heard the news from Kangaroo Cooke, York’s old aide. “Bet you’re glad they weren’t alongside at Talavera,” says he. “Still, they scored one hit, which is more than Tierney and Pitt could manage – and say this for ’em, it’s a dam’ stylish way to bring down a government.” Wasn’t he right, though? Can’t see Melbourne or Peel having the game to shoot each other, worse luck. So, sir, there you have me, back in Town … and I can see the leery look in your eye as you hear me refer so familiarly to Society, with idle mention of nobility and royalty, and ask yourself, do I speak of what I know, or am I a rasher o’ wind retailing second-hand goods? Yes, you do, damn your impudence, I know. You’ve cast about, I don’t doubt, and are aware that the Flashmans are a smoky lot, not halfway up the tree nowadays. My son has the fame of his Afghan laurels, as I had mine in the Peninsula, but they don’t last, and once the shine has gone, you’re an unregarded relic of a disreputable age. We ain’t Quality, never were. Know what my father was? A slave-trader, making enough from black ivory to be a nabob, bought himself a house in South Audley Street and a place in the shires, sent me to Rugby, stumped up for my colours – but he was still trade, and if I was to cut my way into the charmed circle I must do it with my sabre. God knows I tried, at Rolica and Vimeiro, and scouting along the Douro, hunting glory, and in that charge at Talavera. I was “Mad Buck” when I came home, hero of the hour – aye, and for the hour – pointed out at Horse Guards, worth a hail-fellow from Clarence and a shake of the hand from Prinny, who swore he couldn’t ha’ done better himself, by George, sir, he couldn’t … and wondered if I dare turn my eyes on the beauteous ’Lishy Paget – now she was Quality, and above my touch, but I had the style and the shoulders, and I reckoned the Flashman blunt wouldn’t hurt. Aye, but if you’re a hero – and one who has cut his pigtail, mind – you must ride the rocket while it’s ascending, for the stick’ll come down at last. I pray God it never does for young Harry; with luck it won’t, for he has a way with him, and the kind of fame that’ll last a lifetime, even if he don’t add to it, which he likely will. He don’t know it, but by God I’m proud of him. He won his spurs clean, and he don’t have that rum shadow that clung to me over my duelling – can’t think why I was such a fire-eater in the Peninsula, but I was, and the hellish fact is that when you’ve been out a couple o’ times you find a taste for it. Harry’s a cooler hand altogether – why, the only time he stood up the young madman gave his man a free shot, and then deloped! I was never reckoned a funk, but damned if I’d ever have the pluck for that! Aye, I’m proud – as I shall tell him when … well, if he visits me. When you see him, you might … no, better not. Guv’nor in the blue-devil factory’s best at a distance, eh? I’ll take some more of the red tape, if you please … thank’ee. And you may pour out that bottle of belch, too … To come to the point, when I came home in ’09 I was a hero – and nobody. I’d been on the edge of the sporting set as a younker, before I went to Spain – sparred with Cribb, as I told you, took my wet at Stephen’s and Limmer’s, was reckoned a useful pradster at the Corner (no seat at the Monday dinners, though), lost a careful amount at Crocky’s hell in Oxford Street, but was nowhere near Brooks’ or Waitier’s where the real gamesters played, and far outside the swim of the prime swells, the Four-in-Handers and heads of the Fancy. As for the ton, the world of Society, I was nowhere. Too young, too unconnected, too unknown. The nearest I’d ever come to the top flight was to mount York’s mistress unbeknownst, La Clarke aforesaid, and God knows I wasn’t the only one to do that. This won’t do, thinks I, and pondered how I might make a “character” in Town, win my way into the clubs and salons, be a figure on the turf and in the Fancy, and, in fine, become a regular out-and-outer, a buck o’ the first head, at home in Almack’s and the Daffy Club (#litres_trial_promo) both, winning the lofty approval of the Town tabbies in the Park and pattering the flash in the Holy Land – and a mean, dicky ambition, you may say, but you ain’t a young horse soldier with his glory all behind him whose father made his pile shipping blackbirds. I knew it could be done, for while the West End was a damned exclusive place, it was easier to break in then, in those easy times, than it is now. Brummell had done it from nowhere – well, Eton – by being pleasant, and a top-notch cricketer, and looking just so through his quizzing-glass (usually at Prinny’s neckercher), but he was a one-and-only, was George. You had to be noticed, and then admitted, and while some did it by high play, or writing poems, or toad-eating at Holland House, or inventing a new neckercher, or rattling the right dowagers, or even clambering round a room on the furniture without touching the floor, none o’ these would ha’ been my style – except the dowagers, and I didn’t know any. But I had a stroke of luck – the damnedest thing you ever imagined, and before I’d been home a month I was in prime twig, top o’ the mark, and “on the Town”. It was this way. Kangaroo Cooke, whom I mentioned just now, was a leading dandy, a Big Gun. We’d met, just, when I was a lad, and now I ran into him in Craig’s Court, when I was settling up my Army bills. He proved to be a chum of Ponsonby, my old squadron commander, so nothing would do but he must dine me at White’s, and there, keeping my trap shut, my eyes open, and earwigging away, I heard a piece of gossip – dammit, I couldn’t help but hear, for they were full of it, the prime scandal of the hour. As thus: One of the leading bright sparks of the day was young Harry Somerset, Marquis of Worcester and son and heir to the Duke of Beaufort no less, a well-regarded flower of our nobility who was as sober and decent as his son was wild and wanton. The boy was nutty on skirt, though not yet come of age (they’re the worst, you know), with a new charmer each week, until of late he’d fallen under the spell of one Harriet Wilson, a nymph of the pavey whose conduct would ha’ made Messalina look like a nun. Not the usual muslin, you understand, but a notorious siren who’d been mount to half the rakes in Town – a fact to which young Harry was evidently blind, as often happens with young fools and older women. Boys will be boys, to be sure, but what was bringing Beaufort’s grey hairs round his ankles was that the idiot pup was babbling of marriage to this harpy, and at this rate breach of promise would be the least of it. There could be no buying her off, not with a whack at the Beaufort fortune in prospect, and no talking sense into the besotted Harry. Beaufort wanted to buy him colours and ship him off to Spain as aide to Hooky himself, but Harry wasn’t to be budged; he was at Harriet’s dainty feet, wouldn’t hear a word against her, and Beaufort, no doubt seeing himself having to cough up almighty damages or become father-in-law to the Whore of Babylon, was at a nonplus. Either way ’twould be a hideous scandal. What the devil, the gossips asked each other, was he to do? Well, I could ha’ told ’em in no time flat, but ’twas no concern of mine, and it was only later, in idle meditation, that it struck me that whoever could detach the love-smitten younger Somerset from Circe’s embrace must surely earn the undying gratitude of Papa, one of the highest and most powerful peers in the land, a kingpin in Society, a Biggest of Big Guns, and the answer to a toad-eater’s prayer. A duke’s a duke, dammit, only one rung below a Prince of the Blood. It would have to be managed without expense, opprobrium, or the least breath of inconvenience to His Grace, but the dodge I had in mind was right as a gun, and promised a fine gig as well. So I dug out my recently discarded regimentals and sauntered forth in full fig to call on La Belle Harriet at her crib in Mount Street (aptly named). My tale, earnestly delivered with becoming emotion, was that a comrade, Toby Wilson, had expired in my arms in the Peninsula, whispering: “M’sister … dearest Harriet …”, and here I was in the hope that she was the sister referred to. In which case, my heartfelt condolences, and with them those little keepsakes which I had culled, with a manly tear, from his pockets – a snuff-box, rings, seals, baccy-pouch, and a pipe with a Saracen’s head on the bowl, raked out from the rubbish in my attic. Whether she swallowed it I’ve never been sure, and I doubt if she could tell you herself, for all her attention was taken with the dashing dragoon in his tight pants, bowing his stalwart six feet and fairly bursting with boyish admiration. That at least was genuine enough on my part, for she was an opulent beauty with a bold eye and a loose lip, not more than twice my age, and there was more cloth in her turban than in the rest of her deshabille. In any event, dear old Toby was never mentioned again, and within an hour my youthful innocence had succumbed to the wiles of this practised enchantress. I ain’t claiming it as a conquest, by the way, for I doubt if anything with whiskers could have escaped her when she had an hour to spare, and I’d no call to employ the family gift for seduction beyond an artless blush, a gasp of adoration, and letting her have her head. Afterwards, to be sure, I regarded her with calf-like worship and pleaded for a return, which she was pleased to promise for the following afternoon. In my juvenile passion I anticipated this by boarding her again on the spot, and left her in a state of sweet collapse, vowing to call again on the morrow at five precisely. Next morning I scouted about and learned by inquiry that Harry Worcester’s haunt of the day was the old O.P. tavern in Drury Lane, a theatrical ken kept by Hudson the song-smith, where the younger ton were used to look in for coffee and musical diversion of an early evening. That suited admirably, and I went home and wrote a note: “Oh blind, oh trusting! H.W. betrays you! If you doubt it, repair to her directly and behold Shameful Truth unveiled! A Friend”, superscribed and sealed it plain, and instructed my man, a seasoned artful dodger, to deliver it incog to the O.P. at five on the nail. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/george-fraser/black-ajax/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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