Our Man in Camelot Read Online Free PDF

discord in the bud.
    “Well, not exactly. My great-grandfather rode with him, and later on he married a Singleton from Virginia. So he called his son Mosby Singleton in their honour. And after that it got to be a habit.”
    Faith nodded. “And you’re the third. How fascinating—don’t you think so, David?”
    “I do. The Confederacy produced some remarkable cavalry commanders. J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest were in the Murat class. And there was Morgan and the Lees, and Wade Hampton and Joe Wheeler.” He bowed towards Mosby.
    “And John Singleton Mosby, of course.”
    Shirley gave him her most dazzling Scarlett O’Hara smile. “Well, I sure have lost my bet, and that’s a fact. I can see you’re a real expert, David—and I can see your heart’s in the right place too.”
    “With the South, you mean?” Audley took the implied question seriously, ignoring the charm. “I wouldn’t say my heart was involved on either side, to be honest. But it was an extremely interesting war certainly.”
    “You mean you don’t have sympathy for Dixie? But I thought Britishers always favoured the underdog, no matter what.”
    Audley looked at her over his spectacles, aware at last that he was being gently needled. Then he smiled slowly. “Madam, anyone who had to contend with generals like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, not to mention Stuart and Forrest— and with someone like John S. Mosby at his back—cannot have felt very much like an overdog. My sympathies are distributed evenly, if not my admiration.”
    They were both playing parts now.
    “But you just have to admit the South was more romantic. Everybody admits that, even the Yankees do now.”
    Audley considered the proposition gravely. “Ye-ess. I’ll give you romantic. Wrong, but romantic—and the North was right, but repulsive… It’s just like our own civil war, Mrs Sheldon. The Cavaliers were romantic and the Parliamentarians were right. Our Prince Rupert would have made an absolutely splendid Confederate. And if Oliver Cromwell would have disapproved of Grant’s drinking habits he would certainly have respected Abraham Lincoln, no doubt about it… Though if he resembles anyone in your war—Cromwell, that is—I rather think it would be Stonewall Jackson.” He pursed his lips and nodded at Shirley.
    “Gee!” Shirley breathed out admiringly, allowing her mouth to drop open rather as the child’s had done earlier. “Now I know why I lost my bet. You’ve just got to be a professor of history. I’ll bet that instead.”
    Audley smiled his slow smile again, obviously rather taken with her despite himself.
    “What are you betting?”
    “David!” Faith Audley chided him. “You—“
    “I’ll bet—“ Shirley overrode the warning heatedly. “I’ll bet drinks and dinner at our house tonight against drinks and dinner at your house. That’s what I’ll bet.”
    “David,” Faith repeated urgently. “You are the limit, really.” She turned to Shirley helplessly. “He isn’t a professor of history, Mrs Sheldon.”
    “He isn’t?” Shirley laughed happily, obviously in no way put out by losing her bet again.
    “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs Sheldon,” said Audley.
    “Shirley’s the name, please—and you don’t disappoint me at all. You interest me. You know all about John S. Mosby—and Oliver Cromwell—but you’re not a professor… and you sure don’t look like a schoolteacher.”
    “I don’t?” Audley’s eye flickered. “And what does a schoolteacher look like?”
    “Kind of mild, at least deep down. You don’t look mild.”
    True, thought Mosby. It was like being on the foothills of a mountain range: things still grew and blossomed there, but you only had to scrape away the thin covering of soil to reach the same hard rock as that which towered into the clouds ahead. There was a line there where civilisation and savagery overlapped, a no-man’s-land. And that, for all his fine culture, was this