Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  'What did I tell you? They fixed it! It's a bloody carve-up! The old girl goes down, and her ladyship walks out free as a bird! British justice, they call it!' She was trembling with indignation. 'Of all the rotten tricks!'

  Mr Franklin took her arm; he had not been unduly surprised by the verdicts, or by the sentence on Millicent Shore; Lady Helen he felt had got off lightly, but what had startled him had been the court's obvious determination to ignore her outbursts from the dock. 'Come along,' he said. 'Just be thankful it's over, and let's go and have a quiet drink somewhere.'

  But they were not to be permitted to escape so easily. In the corridor there were reporters waiting for Pip - had she been shocked by the verdict on Millicent Shore? Did she still stick to her story? Would she be going to visit Shore in prison? Did she expect the publicity to have any effect on the success of her revue Pip, Squeak? Had the trial been an ordeal for her..?

  'Right,' said Pip with determination. 'You want a statement, boys? I'll give you one!'

  'Pip, be careful,' Mr Franklin was beginning, but Pip cut him short.

  'Don't you worry - if they won't touch precious Lady Helen for contempt, let's see 'em try to touch me. Anyway, it's a free country, isn't it?' She turned to the group of reporters, and Mr Franklin was preparing to wait resignedly when he felt himself touched on the arm. To his astonishment, it was one of the large men who had spirited Lady Helen from the dock.

  'Beg pardon, sir. A message from General Flashman, and could he have a word with you?'

  In view of Sir Harry's recent attempt to compromise him, an interview with that eccentric old scoundrel was the last thing Mr Franklin wanted. He was on the point of refusing when the man added:

  'He says it's most urgent, sir - and he'd be deeply obliged to you. He's got a car waiting, sir.'

  Mr Franklin hesitated, but Pip was now obviously well launched into her views on the British judicial system, no doubt with asides on the future of her theatrical career. So he nodded, and followed the man out of the far door, where General Flashman was waiting beside a closed motor, eyeing with some amusement the small crowd which was being kept back by a couple of uniformed constables.

  There was a buzz of excitement as Mr Franklin appeared, which surprised him. 'That's him!' called someone, and then the General was preceding him stiffly into the car, he was being ushered aboard, the door closed, and as the car roared away into the traffic he found himself staring at Lady Helen Cessford.

  22

  She was pale, and quite plainly furious, but she said nothing, her hand drumming on the arm-rest as her great-uncle settled his huge bulk beside her, grinned at Mr Franklin, and observed:

  'Well, that's over, and all's well that ends well. Eh, Button?'

  His great-niece took a deep breath, shot Mr Franklin a baleful look, and turned on her relative.

  'This is your doing. Well, I hope you are pleased! You have made a fool of me, disgraced me in the eyes of my friends, done irreparable damage to ... to our cause - and I suppose you expect me to thank you for it! Well, I shall never forgive you - never!' She turned to stare fixedly out of the window, containing her anger. 'I shall never forgive you!' she repeated, and the General winked across at Mr Franklin.

  'Wait till you read my will, Button,' he remarked cheerfully. 'You'll feel warmer towards me then, I dare say. Come along, you silly girl!' He patted her knee, and she started away as though he had leprosy. 'I haven't made a fool of you - you've been doing that yourself, for years. And who are these friends you're worried about? A pack of mildewed old maids who've never had a man to keep 'em warm, and have gone sour in consequence. And what's your cause - the vote! Pah! I've done you a good turn, that's all.'

  His great-niece looked ready to burst. 'A good turn! When Millicent Shore goes to prison for three years - and I go free! You know what they will say? That there is one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the poor and feeble! The very injustice our movement is dedicated to - '

  'Well, if that's what they say, they're quite right, and you can thank God for it,' said Sir Harry. 'Now, look here, Button. I've kept you out of jail - I and a few friends of mine, and - '

  'And you expect me to be grateful! I feel shame- nothing but shame!'

  'Very good,' said Sir Harry equably. 'It's a dam' sight better feeling shame between, linen sheets in Curzon Street than feeling virtuous on a blanket in Holloway, let me tell you. And if you don't think so tonight, or in a week's time, even, you can take my word for it you'd certainly feel it before six months of prison was out. Anyway, there's no help for it; you ain't going to jail, and that's that. So you can make the best of it.'

  'Am I not!' His great-niece turned on him passionately. 'Oh, we shall see! You think you've been so clever, so shrewd, the wise old soldier - well, you will find out otherwise! I shall force them to arrest me, I shall - '

  'You can try till you're blue in the face,' said Sir Harry calmly. 'Look here, you little fool, d'you think I was born yesterday? You think you'll smash another painting, or lead a charge in Trafalgar Square, or blow up Westminster, or tear off Asquith's breeches in public? Very well - you do it. And then what? Arrest, trial, publicity, ringing speeches from the dock, martyrdom in the forcible feeding wing - the gallant Lady Helen Cessford victimised by the brutal masculine society which treats women as slaves? That's your style, ain't it?' He turned in his seat to look at Lady Helen, who glared at him in silence.

  'No, no, Button, don't you believe it. Oh, you can commit your outrages and be arrested - and you know what will happen then? An eminent poultice-walloper from Harley Street, with some bearded German quack in tow, will come to look at you, and talk very gently to you, and go off in a corner and whisper, and we'll have a little chat with a pal of mine who's a chum of the Home Secretary - and they'll take you off to a quiet little spot in the country, with nice parkland and excellent nursing, and good books to read, and when you're feeling better, and promise not to smash pictures any more - why, you'll come home again. See? And then you can say what you like - and of course no one will believe for one minute that you were crazy, but they'll believe, as you say, that there's one way of treating a suffragette who's a scrubwoman, like that old trot Shore, and another of treating a peer's daughter. And they'll be right,' he added complacently.

  'You wouldn't date! You... you... you unspeakable man! You. ..' Words failed her, and Sir Harry shook his head.

  'I would, though. It wouldn't be difficult, you know. Look at your father - the fellow's half-witted, and all the world knows it. Thank God you take after your mother. And if you think it's an awful thing, well, I've seen more of the world than you, Button - and I won't have you ruin your life for some half-baked crank notion that thinks the way to get votes for women is to bomb railway trains. Don't you see it's the last thing that can work - no government, not even that weak-kneed rabble of Asquith's, dare give in to terror and vandalism? Anyway, they'll have a dam' sight more important things to think of shortly, with this next war that the country's spoiling for.' Sir Harry snorted derisively. 'Look at 'em - legions of bloodthirsty lunatics drilling in Ireland, workers within an ace of a general strike - dammit, even you women have got the fighting fever, with your smashing and bombing and shooting up locomotives. Any fool can see it'll end in civil war – or more likely our tackling the Kaiser when he takes a slap at Russia or France, which he's itching to do. Your votes are going to look small beer, Button - which is why you're sure to get 'em in the end, and much good they'll do you. But war or not, you'll get 'em all the faster if you lie low and work away quietly. Ain't that right, Franklin?'

  Mr Franklin, who had been silent through this remarkable conversation, found Lady Helen's cold stare turned on him, and felt no wish to get embroiled.

  'It's not my business, Sir Harry. Personally, whatever Lady Helen may think, I'm thankful she's free. I'm only sorry the other woman was so... unlucky. But I don't understand exactly what I'm doing here. You wanted me urgently, I believe.'

&nbs
p; 'Yes.' Sir Harry nodded. 'Not to talk to, though. I wanted the mob to be edified by the sight of the acquitted noblewoman driving off with the leading prosecution witness. Makes it look all the worse, you see - like a put-up job, which is sure to spread discontent among the suffragettes. All sorts of dear little women from Hackney Wick will think twice about rioting in Whitehall if they know they'll finish up on bread and gruel while their more privileged sisters walk off with a fine. Oh, I know they jailed Pankhurst, and all that - but this case will cause a fair stir among our middle-class females who are busy making bombs in their kitchens. See if it doesn't. I'm surprised,' said Sir Harry thoughtfully, 'that the Government didn't think of it long ago.'

  His great-niece was regarding him with unmixed loathing.

  'And you ... you exposed me to the shame of that? To my becoming a target of odium and contempt - '

  'Oh, Button, haven't you a grain of sense? No one'll think the worse of you for a minute. The judge, the judiciary, the powers of Whitehall and Westminster - they're the ones who'll take any odium that's going. They're used to it. It makes no difference to them. The public will sneer and scoff and say that "they" have done it again - but who's "they"? No one knows. I don't even know myself - but I know if I drop a word in an ear here and there that something pops out at t'other end - like a £goo fine instead of a year's picking oakum. I suppose,' he added regretfully, 'that I'll have to find the £500 - but I'm shot if I'll fork out more than a tenner for that bloody atrocious office calendar that your friend cut up.'

  'Are you saying,' said Mr Franklin grimly, `that that trial was rigged?'

  `You're a bigger ass than I thought you were, if you believe that,' said Sir Harry. 'Of course it wasn't. It didn't have to be. This isn't America, where you have to slip a thousand dollars to a congressman or a judge to get things done. You're a new country; things ain't settled yet. But here - things aren't rigged. Look at Button - her father's a lord, connected to God knows who. She's my great niece, and I'm half-Paget, and my sister-in-law married a Rothschild, and among the lot of us I dare say we're connected with half the criminal upper classes - you don't "rig" things, because you don't have to. There's a sort of atmospheric pressure that causes things to go properly and fittingly. Button couldn't go to jail unless her family washed their hands of her - which they would, like a shot, if it was murder or high treason. But smashing pictures? Hardly. And it isn't rigging, you see. You couldn't rig a British judge and jury nowadays, not if you tried.'

  There was a short silence, and Mr Franklin became aware that they had driven past Nelson's Column for the second time; evidently the car was pursuing a circle.

  'So there it is,' said Sir Harry. 'And the result is I'm a few hundred quid out of pocket, and my great-niece, who is one of the idols of my eye - I'm singularly blessed, Franklin, in that among all my granddaughters and great-nieces, there isn't one that wouldn't grace a beauty chorus-my great-niece, I repeat, loathes me for being a corrupt and venal old scoundrel who has, in her misguided view, disgraced her. It don't matter - I'd sooner she loathed me than that she came out of Holloway two years hence, drawn and ugly and old before her time, with the warp of prison woven into her soul.'

  'And Millicent Shore?' Lady Helen turned on him. 'What about her? What will Holloway do to that poor woman, old and feeble and miserable, with - '

  'Millicent Shore isn't my grand-niece,' said Sir Harry. 'And that is her bad luck. If she was, she'd be in this car this minute, and you'd be getting fitted out with prison drawers and chemise.' He sighed heavily. 'Tap the glass, will you, Franklin, and tell the driver Berkeley Square. Your great-aunt Elspeth has your room ready, Button; you can stay with us for a day or two.'

  'I prefer to go home,' said Lady Helen icily. 'If you will explain to Aunt Elspeth that I - '

  'Shan't do anything of the sort,' said Sir Harry. 'Do it yourself, if you like - but I shall tell you something, for the good of your health, young Button, because my temper is rapidly beginning to fray.' He turned his great satyr face in her direction. 'Or rather, I won't tell you anything, I'll ask you two questions. And if you can answer 'em with a straight face, looking me in the eye - why, you're even more of a hard-barked young bitch than I think you are.' He glared at his great-niece, and then asked:

  'You're truly concerned about that poor old woman, ain't you? It wrings your heart to think of her sleeping on a plank bed and living off slops and working her old bones into an early grave, doesn't it?'

  Lady Helen stared back at him levelly; after a moment she said in a low, hard voice: 'You know very well it does.'

  'Very good,' said Sir Harry. 'Then tell me, Button - why didn't you swing that cleaver yourself?'

  Lady Helen started, but her glance did not falter. She continued to stare at him, and Mr Franklin could hear her breathing. But she said nothing, and after a moment Sir Harry sat back in the corner of the car. 'God, I'm tired,' he said. 'Hate court-rooms - always have. Remember one, back in New Orleans - slaving-ship court of inquiry, and I came so close to perjury I wake up in a sweat about it still. Now that was a rigged affair, if you like, young Franklin.' He chuckled. 'But it all ended happy, with no one the worse; even the little yellow girls from the. ..' He coughed and glanced towards his niece, who had turned away and was staring out of the cab window.

  They rode in silence for a few moments, passing the Nelson monument again, and Mr Franklin realised that he had not obeyed Sir Harry's injunction to direct the driver to Berkeley Square. He glanced at Lady Helen, wondering if he should ask if she wished to go instead to Curzon Street, and at that moment an audible snore erupted from the General's corner of the cab. He was leaning back, his great head sunk forward on his chest, his hat tilted over his eyes, breathing stertorously; one great mottled hand lay palm down on the seat beside him; Mr Franklin could see the shiny white streak of a wound running from wrist to little finger, and there was the star-shaped scar of what might have been an old bullet-hole in the loose flesh between thumb and forefinger. He shivered; he had looked Sir Harry up in Who's Who and read incredulously through the succinct list of campaigns and decorations - that gnarled old man sleeping there had seen Custer ride into the broken bluffs above the Little Big Horn, and fought hand-to-hand with Afghan tribesmen more than seventy years ago; he had ridden into the guns at Balaclava and seen the ranks form for Pickett's charge at Gettysburg; he had known Wellington and Lincoln - and now he was snoring gently in the corner of a motor car in the busy heart of modern London, and all the glory and horror and fear and bloodshed were small, dimly-remembered things of no account, and when he woke his one concern would not be the fate of nations or armies or his own life in the hazard, but the welfare of one wilful young woman whom he was trying to save from her own folly, in his strange, unscrupulous way.

  Lady Helen had heard the snore, too, and turned to look. For a moment her face was expressionless; she seemed to be unaware that Mr Franklin was watching her, and then she sighed quietly and glanced across at him.

  'Would you tell the driver Berkeley Square, please?' Mr Franklin tapped on the glass and passed on the order, and when he looked again Lady Helen was watching her great-uncle with an expression close to resignation. She reached sideways and let her gloved fingers rest on the great brown hand, and the General's snoring checked before resuming its deep even note. His cane was resting against his knees, and in danger of slipping; Mr Franklin laid it more securely against the seat.

  'He is over ninety, you know,' said Lady Helen, and Mr Franklin said, yes, he knew.

  'One forgets, sometimes,' said Lady Helen. 'He doesn't behave at all like a very old man - he remembers everything, and his brain is so alert and active. Did you know, that only fourteen years ago, he was staying at the Residency in Peking, when it was attacked in the Boxer Rising, and he took charge of the artillery belonging to your American contingent, and commanded it all through the siege? He was seventy-eight then. And when the Residency was relieved, the officer in charge of the American Marines said h
e would write to the President to ask for some special decoration for him, and Uncle Harry laughed and asked one of the Marines to give him his hat, and then he put it on and said: "That'll do better than a medal", and off he went.' She pressed the old man's hand, and Mr Franklin saw there were tears in her eyes. 'We're very proud of him, of course.'

  'I guess you must be.'

  'Although he is a quite dreadful person, really. He is absolutely selfish and dishonest and quite shameless. He has a shocking reputation -and deserves it. Just a few years ago he had to leave Sandringham in disgrace.' She had apparently forgotten that Mr Franklin had been there. 'How Aunt Elspeth has endured him .. do you know that next year they will have been married for seventy-five years? It seems incredible ... she is ninety years old, and a darling. So is he, I suppose - and yet sometimes I feel that I hate him more than anyone I've ever known; you would not believe how mean and deceitful he can be - even with people he loves. Today, for example.'

  She was talking as much to herself as to him, her eyes on the old man's sleeping face, but now she seemed to realise Mr Franklin's presence, and withdrew her hand from the General's.