She had begun to want to see him behind the smokehouse--but that was lost. When Jake came back down the stairs, he would be different. He would have the Missus's smell on him. He wouldn't be sweet to her anymore, or help her carry water or feed the chickens.
As Felice swept she felt old Ben following her, getting closer, hoping for a pinch or a grab. It filled her with fury, suddenly; she wasn't going to have it, not this morning, when her new feeling for Jake had just been crushed.
"You scat, you old possum!" Felice said, whirling on the butler. The anger in her face startled old Ben so that he turned on his heel and went to polish the doorknobs. It was a hard life, he felt, when a butler wasn't even allowed to touch a saucy yellow girl.
When Jake approached Madame Scull's bedroom he felt a deep apprehension, a fear so deep that it made his legs shaky. At the same time he felt a high excitement, higher than what he felt when he managed to snatch a kiss from Felice. It was a little like what he felt when he visited one of the whore tents down by the river with Gus McCrae, a treat he had only been allowed twice.
But this excitement was higher. Madame Scull wasn't a whore, she was a great lady. The Scull mansion was finer by far than the Governor's house. Jake was conscious that his pants were ragged, and his shirt frayed. To his horror he saw, looking down, that he had forgotten to wipe his feet: he had muddied the carpet at the head of the stairs. Now there was mud on Madame Scull's fine carpet.
Then he noticed Inez Scull, watching him from the bedroom door. She had the same sun-flushed look on her face that she had had when she put her hand in his pants.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry, I tracked in mud," he said. "I'll get the broom and clean it up for you." "No, hang the mud--don't you be running off from me again," Madame Scull said.
Then she smiled at him. She had put on a gown of some kind, but it had slipped off one shoulder.
""Come to my parlor,"' said the spider to the fly," Inez said, thinking how glad she was that Inish had had to leave to chase red Indians. The Comanche might be an inconvenience to the ragged settlers, but they were a boon to her, the fact being that her husband's embraces had long since grown stale. Austin was a dull, dusty town, with no society and little entertainment, but there was no denying that Texas produced an abundance of fine, sturdy young men. They were hardly refined, these boys of the frontier, but then she wasn't seeking refinement. What she wanted was fine sturdy boys, with curls and stout calves, like the one who stood before her at the moment. She walked over to Jake--he had tracked rather a lot of mud up her stairs--and took up where she had left off, quickly opening his pants, confident that in a week or less she could cure him of embarrassment where fleshly matters were concerned.
"Let's see that little pricklen again," she said.
"You scarcely let me touch it the other day." Jake was so shocked he could not find a ^w to say.
""Pricklen,"' that's what my good German boy called it," Inez said. "My Jurgen was proud of his pricklen, and yours is nothing to be ashamed of, Jakie." She began to lead Jake down the long hall, looking with interest at what had popped out of his pants. His pants had slipped down around his legs, which meant that he couldn't take very long steps. Madame Scull led him by the hand.
"I expect I'd have my Jurgen and his pricklen yet if Inish
hadn't hanged him," Madame Scull said casually.
At that point, hoping he hadn't heard right, Jake stopped. All he could see was the hang noose, and himself on the gallows, with the boys standing far below, to watch him swing.
"Oh dear, I've given you a fright," Inez said, with a quick laugh. "Inish didn't hang my Jurgen for this! He wouldn't hang a fine German boy just because he and I had enjoyed a little sport." "What'd he hang him for, then?" Jake asked, unconvinced.
"Why, the foolish boy stole a horse," Madame Scull said. "I don't know what he needed with a horse--he .was rather a horse, in some respects. I was quite crushed at the time. It seemed my Jurgen would rather have a horse than me.
But of course Inish caught him, and took him straight to the nearest tree and hung him." Jake didn't want to hang, but he didn't want to leave Madame Scull, either.
Anyway, with his pants around his ankles, he could hardly walk, much less run.
They were near a big hall closet, where coats and boots were kept. Jake noticed that Madame Scull was freckled on her shoulders and her bosom, but he didn't have time to notice much more, because she suddenly yanked him into the closet. Her move was so sudden that he lost his balance and fell, in the deep closet. He was on his back, amid shoes and boots, with the bottoms of coats hanging just above him. Jake thought he must be crazy, to be in such a situation.
Madame Scull was breathing in loud snorts, like a winded horse. She squatted right over him, but Jake couldn't see her clearly, because her head was amid the hanging coats. There was the smell of mothballs in the closet, and the smell of saddle soap, but, even stronger, there was the smell of Inez Scull, who was not cautious in her behaviour with him--not cautious at all. She flung coats off their hangers and kicked shoes and boots out into the hall, in order to situate herself above him, exactly where she wanted to be.