Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (8 page)

'You will forget the matter, sergeant. You were mistaken. Do you understand me?'

'Yessir,' said Verity with ill-suppressed indignation. 'One other thing to say, sir.'

'Well ?'

'That Magdalen Asylum where they got Miss Jolly. It ain't nothing but a thieves' kitchen. It's full of heavy swells gaming, drinking shrub, smoking cheroots, and fouling the air with their slum talk, sir. And that little minx looked as though she'd took her things off and was ready to spread her legs for all of 'em in turn, sir!'

'Sergeant!'

'That's 'ow it looked, sir, with respect, sir. And that Irish bully'd have killed me if I 'adn't done it to him first, sir! Being Irish wasn't any excuse for what he tried to do, sir!'

Captain Smiles cocked his head on one side, bright-eyed as a little bird, and looked up at the dishevelled sergeant.

'I shall not waste time with you,' he said flatly. 'Indeed, but for some service which it seems you performed for the Prince of Wales a month or two since, you would already be on your way home. Now you may choose. Your conduct last night will be overlooked, provided that you forget the entire incident.'

'And if I can't forget, sir?'

'Then,' said Smiles reasonably, 'you are to be sent home on the orders of His Royal Highness. And make no mistake, if that happens, your service with the Metropolitan Police will be at an end.'

'Don't seem to have much choice, sir, do I ?'

Captain Smiles shrugged as Verity persisted.

'Ain't I to be told anything, sir? There
was
a fancy-man. And she been putter-up to robbery and blackmail at home, sir! All the world knows it! And I've seen whore-houses that looked more like Magdalen Asylums than that one! And why was I the wrong one ?'

'Curiosity killed a cat, sergeant.'

'Yessir. Just as you say, sir.'

Verity's flushed jowls and dark eyes were as close to glowering as he had ever been in the presence of a superior officer.

'Come along, then,' said Captain Smiles impatiently, leading the way with a bandy-legged swagger, down the gloomy passageways and into the sunlit slums of New York.

6

The smooth-skinned young man with his mild blue eyes, carefully-flattened fair hair, his heavy mouth and jaw disfiguring an otherwise pleasant face, stood on the edge of the flat rock and gazed in awe at the sight before him. On every side of him there rose a long incessant roar, which seemed almost to be emitted from the deep centre of the earth. The broad river, smooth and wide, flowed swiftly on, each rock and islet diverting the current in a recoiling feather of spray. Presently the first foam appeared on the eddies, and there were whirlpools that made the youth's head spin until he had to look away from them. Torn, and jagged, and roaring, the broad torrent poured and throbbed over rocks and stones in mounds of spray, like loosely-driven snow. In the mad onward rush of the stream, trees tumbled over and over, their branches rising from the surface briefly, like the arms of drowning men.

Soon there appeared a line of breakers between dense foliage, the writhing and hissing of a cataract, enough to make the very banks quiver with its vibration. The tumbling waters emerged at last on to the brink of a sheer and mighty-precipice, extending in its thunder far away into the western sunset. Into the cauldron of spray beneath, the mighty curtain of green plunged smooth as oil or polished marble. As the sun clipped behind the hills on the American shore a great gauze-like mist rose higher from the seething waters below, making the very rocks and pine woods seem like a stage magician's vision hovering in the air. The young man and his companions stood, as though in the presence of a divine revelation, before the majesty of Niagara.

He alone stood forward from the rest. Behind him was a group of older men. One of these, a grave-looking figure with a fair beard closely-trimmed, approached the young man and spoke softly.

'Mr Blackwell's Bengal Lights, sir. They will be best seen from where we stand now.'

The youth nodded, as though his heart were too full for speech. There was a moment's delay, and then from the cliff below them and from behind the very curtain of waters sweeping into the abyss, a silver magnesium brilliance blazed out across the dark chasm. From the party on Table Rock and from the crowds on either bank there was a gasp of wonder. The great falls of the Niagara had been turned into a shimmering surface of crystal glass, in which the droplets of the spray became a cascade of diamonds, and the seething foam shone white as a river of phosphorus.

At length the Bengal Lights began to sputter and die, but only to be rekindled in deepest red. The Niagara seemed a torrent of blood or a river of fire in the night. In its deep natural drama the transformation scene held the great crowds in silent veneration. Then, at last, the two hundred torches guttered and died, one by one.

The eighteen-year-old Prince of Wales stood for a long time alone gazing at the darkened scene from the edge of the rock, while the trimly-bearded Duke of Newcastle, Secretary-of-State for the Colonies, and the other officials of his party stood behind him in respectful attendance. Behind them were several young officers of the Prince's staff.

Further back still, in the shadows, stood Sergeant Verity, his large boots planted firmly apart, one hand resting in the palm of the other behind his back. It was the approved stance for a Private-Clothes officer on surveillance duty of this kind.

The grandeur of the occasion had moved him so deeply that there was a lump in his throat. He had never seen anything to approach such a display. Just before his departure for America he had taken Bella to Mr Grieve's Stereorama at the Cremorne Gardens, on his rest day. All the others in the jostling crowd of the canvas booth had sworn that it was just like being in the Alps or on the shores of the Italian lakes, so vivid were the scenes. Yet he had thought it only a clever toy. The glory of Niagara illuminated was the union of man and nature, so sublime that one might shed a manly tear in admiration. Such a tribute would have been absurd in a penny show at the Cremorne.

The young Prince walked alone and thoughtfully along the path which led back to the grounds of Clifton House on the Canadian bank of the river. Among its trees and gardens were several picturesque cottages. One of these accommodated the Prince himself, while the others were taken up by the Duke of Newcastle, General Bruce, who was the Prince's Governor, Dr Acland the Royal Surgeon, and the dark plump figure of Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador to the United States. These dignitaries followed their young master at a distance, talking with bright self-consciousness. Verity strode heavily behind. He had learnt by instinct that there was a point which was close enough for him to be an effective bodyguard, and yet not so close as to make his presence intrusive.

A single illuminated banner streamed somewhere over the falls 'God bless the Prince of Wales!' It seemed tawdry-after the grandeur of Mr Blackwell's Bengal Lights. Verity watched the young man bid a pleasant good-night to his elders and enter the neat white cottage. Then Verity himself took the first watch. He marched smartly three paces forward from the door and came to attention with a ceremonial precision, though he was in private clothes and there was no one to see him. With equal exactitude he planted his feet 'at ease', his hands folded behind him. His pink jowls were set and his black eyes narrowed as he scanned the darkness ahead of him, with scowling suspicion, promising damnation to the Queen's enemies.

He was relieved by the Canadian guard at 2 am, but at first light he woke and crept out almost furtively to look again at the majesty of the great falls. His swelling emotion was marred by only one regret. This was Bella. To have had her with him, and to have stood before such grandeur, side by side, would, he imagined, have been a foretaste of standing before the greatest throne of all.

By the afternoon, he had resumed his duties as bodyguard, drab and inconspicuous among the elegantly-suited members of the official party and the peacock splendour of the royal equerries Major Teesdale and Colonel Grey, resplendent in scarlet and gold with the white plumes of the British General Staff. The Prince and his followers had ranged themselves on a graceful little suspension-bridge, a web of white-painted iron which seemed thin and delicate as a net. The bridge was almost two miles below the falls, above a splendid ravine between whose cliffs the rapids of Niagara roared and surged in their narrower channel. Dark pine trees stretched like a forest on either side but in the gorge below the little bridge the blue water formed its menacing whirlpools.

It was a place of fascination and of horror. The victims of the falls, suicides or accidents, were borne to the great whirlpool below the bridge. Their bodies were, bizarrely, stripped naked by the current but rarely damaged otherwise. Forced down by the thrust of the current, the naked corpses, as well as fragments of trees and rock, would be whirled round for months together before a shift in the river's flow released them at last into the calm waters of Lake Ontario. Verity shuddered at the thought of the horror beneath his feet as he stood at a distance on the little suspension-bridge and awaited the pleasure of the rest of the party.

Their eyes were all on the slack rope which hung between the two cliffs of the rapids, just upstream from the bridge. Like so many other visitors to the place, they had come to satisfy a morbid excitement by seeing Blondin walk. Verity was 'not particular' to see it, as he had confessed to the Canadian sergeant with whom he shared guard duties, but now that he was on the bridge he found that he could not take his eyes off the slack rope.

From the American side of the gorge there appeared a slightly built man, modest and serious in his demeanour, dressed in woollen fleshings and wearing what looked like a leather kilt, as though from a sense of decorum. On either bank the crowds waited expectantly.

Blondin approached the rope, which was stretched almost directly above the sickening vortex of the whirlpool. He slid his slippered foot along the cord, as though testing its surface. Then, with arms held waveringly outward, he moved forward with neat, gliding steps. The slackness of the rope meant that he was walking down an incline which appeared perilously steep. Verity glanced at the whirlpool and the grisly dance of the dead within its spiralling waters. If Blondin should fall, he thought, nothing would save him in the rapids and the downward suction. It was not the death which horrified him most of all but the long moment of agony, while the hapless victim and the onlookers gazed mutely at one another.

When he looked up again, the acrobat was almost at the bottom of the sloping cord, where he paused. There was a gasp from the crowd as Blondin's feet flew upward from the rope, and he turned a vigorous somersault, regaining his balance easily. In the stillness, Verity could hear the voice of the young Prince, tormented by the peril in which the man had put himself, whispering, 'No! No! For God's sake don't do it again!' But Blondin now turned sideways on the rope and began to cartwheel leisurely in a star-pattern of extended arms and legs. There was no sound of applause or appreciation from the crowd, only a deep and ghastly silence. Verity had no idea of how long the performance lasted, but at length Blondin moved forward, leaning towards the Canadian bank as he climbed the upward slope of the cord, just as he had held his body backward when descending the slope on the American side. In a moment more, he had set foot firmly on the Canadian cliff. There was an instant of indecision, followed by a patter of stunned applause. The royal party exhaled audible sighs of relief.

Presently, Verity was aware that the acrobat was being brought on to the bridge to be introduced to the Prince. The young visitor had recovered from his nervousness, though perhaps his ready laughter was now a sign of the shock he had felt. Blondin, light-footed and deferential, approached and bowed deeply. The young Prince congratulated him and then, with a lightness which robbed his words of their effect, said, 'For God's sake, let that be the end of the performance.'

Blondin spoke softly and rapidly. His words were inaudible to Verity but the effect on the Prince was unmistakable. His eyes brightened as though at a challenge. Blondin meanwhile began to make the motions of a man pushing something with his hands and gestured toward one end of the bridge, where a wooden wheelbarrow stood beside his few items of equipment. Then the young Prince laughed again.

'Very well!' he said with amiable aggressiveness. 'If you're game, then so am I!' He took a step forward, as if to accompany the acrobat.

Verity watched with growing unease. But already a glance had passed between the grave, bearded figure of Newcastle and Major-General Bruce with his fine white moustaches. They advanced on their young lord and spoke with quiet vigour. The Prince's amiability faded into sullen resignation. Blondin waved an arm as though inviting someone else of the party to be his passenger. The Prince's companions now looked stonily at the tightrope artist who had made so indecorous a proposal. Then one of the smartly uniformed staff officers turned suddenly and looked at Verity.

'By Jove!' he said brightly. 'But ain't we got a man here for it? The hero who saved the
Hero,
eh? What ? The Alma and Inkerman, eh? Beat the Russians? Rescued pretty little chits from the Sepoy mutineers, what? Nothing to him to cross a rope in a barrow! Ha ?'

Verity stood horrified at the proposal. Now they were all looking at him, the royal party in amusement, and Blondin with calm optimism. He thought of Bella and the children. It was mad, absurd. He could refuse to associate himself with such folly and no one in the world would blame him. But though they would never speak the thought, they would wonder if, after all, he had been afraid.

'I ain't afraid to go, sir!' he said, his plump cheeks flushing and his legs trembling. The others continued to look with amusement but the young man, for whom he cared more than for all the rest of them, turned his eyes on Verity and spoke softly.