The Devil's Acre Read Online Free PDF Page B

tosee a persistent flunky asking for his surtout, his hat and his name; he supplied them, not bothering to disguise his impatience. He was announced to the company, and met their attention with a scowl.
    ‘Take it in, you blasted Bulls,’ he muttered under his breath as he attempted to flatten his curls. ‘I shall have you yet.’
    Mr Buchanan, the newly appointed American minister in whose honour the reception was being held, approached to welcome him, looking pretty damn distinguished with his neat white hair and high starched collar. ‘It pleases me greatly,’ he declared, ‘that such a singular personage as Colonel Samuel Colt, perhaps the most famous American presently in London, can find the time to attend this modest gathering.’
    Sam knew Jim Buchanan a little from Washington and their handshake was cordial enough. The minister was no businessman, though, and could not disguise his personal feelings. That oblong face with its prominent chin and small, mild eyes was easy to read: he considers me vulgar, Sam thought with some amusement, and is concerned that I might put lordly noses out of joint with my brash manners. They exchanged a few words about Buchanan’s new post.
    ‘I was on good terms with Mr Lawrence, your predecessor,’ Sam said. ‘He was a man prepared to extend whatever help he could to an honest American trying to achieve something in this damnably slow-paced country.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Buchanan replied carefully.
    Sam saw at once that the fellow didn’t want to give any sense of an understanding between them – to put himself in a position where he might be asked to overstep some invisible barrier of diplomatic protocol. This was a predictable attitude. The new minister was renowned for his aversion to risk, to anything that might attract critical attention; a general habit of life that had been fostered (or so it was rumoured) by his secret preference for male companionship in the bedchamber.
    Taking Sam’s arm, Buchanan guided him over to a large group of men and women whose colourful dress and openness of manner marked them as Americans. There was a round of introductions, and not a single name Sam recognised.Binding them all was the false sense of familiarity that one so often encountered among countrymen brought together abroad. Their conversation was concerned entirely with Franklin Pierce, the new president, and the tragic accident which had befallen his family between the election and his inauguration; they were relating the details, Sam couldn’t help but think, with a certain ghoulish pleasure.
    ‘Crushed to death, the boy was, within the president’s sight!’ one lady pronounced, her eyes open wide. ‘The railway carriage rolled over onto its side, you see, and the child had been leaning from the window – oh, I can’t bear to think of it!’
    ‘Pierce is a broken man, they say,’ opined the fellow next to her. ‘Barely made it through his oath. Sits in the Oval Office all day long with the curtains drawn, paralysed with grief for his lost son.’
    Sam quickly concluded that none of these blabbering fools was of any use to him. He looked over at the silver-bearded John Bulls conferring in other parts of the room and prepared to break away.
    Another of the ladies, moved almost to tears by Pierce’s tale, intercepted him. ‘How can a man recover from such a blow, Colonel Colt? Can he at all?’
    His departure checked for a moment, Sam paused in thought. ‘Of matters concerning dead children, ma’am, I really cannot say,’ he answered. ‘But it’s going to be a tough time indeed for those of us that might have been intending to do business with our government. That’s one reason why you find me here in London, setting up a new factory. Speaking frankly, though, my hopes for a Pierce presidency were always low. I’ve known the fellow for a number of years, from his army days. Far too fond of the bottle – and I reckon he’s reaching for it now, with a new