and carefully, fondling her and murmuring nonsense in her ear, and then her arms went round my neck.
Frankly, I think the Count had underestimated her horse artillery husband, for she had learned a great deal from somewhere. I'd been prepared for her to be reluctant, or to need some jollying along, but she entered into the spirit of the thing like a tipsy widow, and it was from no sense of duty or giving the house of Pencherjevsky its money's worth that I stayed until past four o'clock. I do love a bouncy blonde with a hearty appetite, and when I finally crawled back to my own chilly bed it was with the sense of an honest night's work well done.
But if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well, and since there seemed to be an unspoken understanding that the treatment should be continued, I made frequent forays to Valla's room in the ensuing nights. And so far as I'm a judge, the little baggage revelled in being a dutiful daughter—they're a damned randy lot, these Russians. Something to do with the cold weather; I dare say. A curious thing was, I soon began to feel as though we were truly married, and no doubt this had something to do with the purpose behind our night games; yet during the day we remained on the same easy terms as before, and if Sara grudged her niece the pleasuring she was getting, she never let on. Pencherjevsky said nothing, but from time to time I would catch him eyeing us with sly satisfaction, fingering his beard at the table head.
East suspected something, I'm certain. His manner to me became nervous, and he avoided the family's society even more than before, but he didn't dare say anything. Too scared of finding his suspicions well grounded, I suppose.
The only fly in the ointment that I could see was the possibility that during the months ahead it might become apparent that I was labouring in vain; however, I was ready to face Pencherjevsky's disappointment when and if it came. Valla's yawns at breakfast were proof that I was doing my share manfully. And then something happened which made the whole speculation pointless.
From time to time in the first winter months there had been other guests at the big house of Starotorsk: military ones. The nearest township—where I'd encountered Ignatieff—was an important army headquarters, a sort of staging post for the Crimea, but as there was no decent accommodation in the place, the more important wayfarers were in the habit of putting up with Pencherjevsky. On these occasions East and I were politely kept in our rooms, with a Cossack posted in the corridor, and our meals sent up on trays, but we saw some of the comings and goings from our windows—Liprandi, for example, and a grandee with a large military staff whom East said was Prince Worontzoff. After one such visit it was obvious to both of us that some sort of military conference had been held in the Count's library—you could smell it the next morning, and there was a big map easel leaned up in a corner that hadn't been there before.
'We should keep our eyes and ears open,' says East to me later. 'Do you know—if we could have got out of our rooms when that confabulation was going on, we might have crept into the old gallery up yonder, and heard all kinds of useful intelligence.'
This was a sort of screened minstrel's gallery that overlooked the library; you got into it by a little door off the main landing. But it was no welcome suggestion to me, as you can guess, who am all for lying low.
'Rot!' says I. 'We ain't spies—and if we were, and the whole Russian general staff were to blab their plans within earshot, what could we do with the knowledge?'
'Who knows-' says he, looking keen. 'That Cossack they put to watch our doors sleeps half the night—did you know? Reeking of brandy. We could get out, I daresay—I tell you what, Flashman, if another high ranker comes this way,, I think we're bound to try and overhear him, if we can. It's our duty.'
'Duty?' says I, alarmed. 'Duty to eavesdrop? What kind of company have you been keeping lately? I can't see Raglan, or any other honourable man, thinking much of that sort of conduct.' The high moral line, you see; deuced handy sometimes. 'Why, we're as good as guests in this place.'
'We're prisoners,' says he, 'and we haven't given any parole. Any information we can come by is a legitimate prize of war—and if we heard anything big enough it might even be worth trying a run for it. We're not that far from the Crimea.'
This was appalling. Wherever you go, however snug you may have made yourself, there is always one of these duty-bound, energetic bastards trying to make trouble. The thought of spying on the Russians, and then lighting out in the snow some dark night, with Pencherjevsky's Cossacks after us—my imagination was in full flight in a trice, while Scud stood chewing his lip, muttering his thoughtful lunacies. I didn't argue—it would have looked bad, as though I weren't as eager to strike a blow for Britannia as he was. And it wasn't even worth talking about —we weren't going to get the chance to spy, or escape, or do anything foolish. I'd have given a thousand to one on that—which, as it turned out, would have been very unwise odds to offer.
However, after that small discussion the weeks had slipped by without any other important Russians visiting the place, and then came my diversion with Valla, and East's ridiculous daydream went clean out of my mind. And then, about ten days after I had started galloping her, a couple of Ruski staff captains jingled into the courtyard one morning, to be followed by a large horse-sled, and shortly afterwards comes the Count's major-domo to East and me, presenting his apologies, and chivvying us off to our rooms.
We took the precaution of muffling the hidden speaking-tube, and kept a good watch from East's window that day. We saw more sleds arrive, and from the distant hum of voices in the house and the sound of tramping on the stairs we realized there must be a fair-sized party in the place. East was all excited, but what really stirred him was when a sled arrived late in the afternoon, and Pencherjevsky himself was in the yard to meet it—attired as we'd never seen him before, in full dress uniform.
'This is important,' says East, his eyes alight. 'Depend upon it, that's some really big wig. Gad! I'd give a year's pay to hear what passes below tonight.' He was white with excitement. 'Flashman, I'm going to have a shot at it!'
'You're crazy,' says I. 'With a Cossack mooching about the passage all night? You say he sleeps—he can wake up, too, can't he?'
'I'll chance that,' says he, and for all I could try—appeals to his common sense, to his position as a guest, to his honour as an officer (I think I even invoked Arnold and religion) he remained set.
'Well, don't count on me,' I told him. 'It ain't worth it—they won't be saying anything worth a damn—it ain't safe, and by thunder, it's downright ungentlemanly. So now!'
To my surprise, he patted my arm. 'I respect what you say, old fellow,' says he. 'But—I can't help it. I may be wrong, but I see my duty differently, don't you understand? I know it's St Paul's to a pub it'll be a fool's errand, but—well, you never know. And I'm not like you—I haven't done much for Queen and country. I'd like to try.'
Well, there was nothing for it but to get my head under the bed-clothes that night and snore like hell, to let the world know that Flashy wasn't up to mischief. Neither, it transpired, was the bold East: he reported next day that the Cossack had stayed awake all night, so his expedition had to be called off. But the sleds stayed there all day, and the next, and they kept us cooped up all the time, and the Cossack remained vigilant, to East's mounting frenzy.
'Three days!' says he. 'Who can it be, down there? I tell you, it must be some important meeting! I know it! And we have to sit here, like mice in a cage, when if we could only get out for an hour, we might find out something that would—oh, I don't know, but it might be vital to the war! It's enough to drive a chap out of his wits!'
'It already has,' says I. 'You haven't been shut up like this before, have you? Well, I've been a prisoner more times than I care to think of, and I can tell you, after a while you don't reason straight any longer. That's what's wrong with you. Also, you're tired out; get to sleep tonight, and forget this nonsense.'
He fretted away, though, and I was almost out of patience with him by dinner-time, when who should come up with the servants bearing dinner, but Valla. She had just dropped in to see us, she said,- and was very bright, and played a three-handed card game with us, which was a trying one for East, I could see. He was jumpy as a cat with her at the best of times, blushing and falling over his feet, and now in addition he was fighting to keep from asking her what was afoot downstairs, and who the visitors were. She prattled on, till about nine, and then took her leave, and as I held the door for her she gave me a glance and a turn of her pretty blonde head that said, as plain as words: 'It's been three nights now. Well?' I went back to my room next door, full of wicked notions, and leaving East yawning and brooding.
If I hadn't been such a lustful brute, no doubt prudence would have kept me abed that night. But at midnight I was peeping out, and there was the Cossack, slumped on… his stool, head back and mouth open, reeking like Davis's cellar. Valla's work, thinks I, the charming little wretch. I slipped past him, and he never even stirred, and I padded out of the pool of lamplight round him and reached the big landing.
All was still up here, but there was a dim light down in the hall, and through the banisters I could see two
