01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  "Your simple honesty, no less than your manly aspect and your glorious sentiments, won the admiration and love of all who heard you," Ellenborough told me afterwards. "Flashman, I salute you.

  Furthermore," says he, "I intend that England shall salute you also.

  When he returns from his victorious campaign, Sir Robert Sale will be despatched to England, where I doubt not he will receive those marks of honour which become a hero."(23) (He talked like this most of the time, like a bad actor.(24) Many people did, sixty years ago.) "As is fitting, a worthy herald shall precede him, and share his glory. I mean, of course, yourself. Your work here is done, and nobly done, for the time being. I shall send you to Calcutta with all the speed that your disability allows, there to take ship for England."

  I just stared at the man; I had never thought of this. To get out of this hellish country - for if, as I've said, I can now consider that India was kind to me, I was still overjoyed at the thought of leaving it - to see England again, and home, and London, and the clubs and messes and civilised people, to be feted there as I had been assured I would be, to return in triumph when I had set out under a cloud, to be safe beyond the reach of black savages, and heat, and filth, and disease, and danger, to see white women again, and live soft, and take life easy, and sleep secure at nights, to devour the softness of Elspeth, to stroll in the park and be pointed out as the hero of Piper's Fort, to come back to life again - why, it was like waking from a nightmare. The thought of it all set me shaking.

  "There are further reports to be made on affairs in Afghanistan,"

  says Ellenborough, "and I can think of no more fitting messenger."

  "Well, sir," says I. "I'm at your orders. If you insist, I'll go."

  It took four months to sail home, just as it had taken four months to sail out, but I'm bound to say I didn't mind this time. Then I had been going into exile; now I was coming home a hero. If I'd had any doubts of that the voyage dispelled them. The captain and his officers and the passengers were as civil as butter, and treated me as if I were the Duke himself; when they found I was a cheery sort who liked his bottle and talk we got along famously, for they never seemed to tire of hearing me tell of my engagements with Afghans - male and female -

  and we got drunk most nights together. One or two of the older chaps were a bit leery of me, and one even hinted that I talked a deal too much, but I didn't care for this, and said so. They were just sour old package-rats, anyway, or jealous civilians.

  I wonder, now, looking back, that the defence of Jallalabad made such a stir, for it was a very ordinary business, really. But it did, and since I was the first out of India who had been there, and borne a distinguished part, I got the lion's share of admiration. It was so on the ship, and was to prove so in England.

  During the voyage my broken leg recovered almost entirely, but there was not much activity on shipboard anyway, and no women, and, boozing with the boys apart, I had a good deal of time to myself. This, and the absence of females, naturally turned me to thoughts of Elspeth; it was strange and delightful to think of going home to a wife, and I got that queasy feeling deep in my bowels whenever I found myself dreaming about her. It wasn't all lust, either, not more than about nine-tenths -after all, she wasn't going to be the only woman in England - but when I conjured up a picture of that lovely, placid face and blonde hair I got a tightness in my throat and a trembling in my hands that was quite apart from what the clergy call carnal appetites.

  It was the feeling I had experienced that first night I rattled her beside the Clyde -a kind of hunger for her presence and the sound of her voice and the dreamy stupidity of her blue eyes. I wondered if I was falling in love with her, and decided that I was, and that I didn't care, anyway

  - which is a sure sign.

  So in this moonstruck state I whiled away the long voyage, and by the time we docked among the forest of shipping in London pool I was in a fine sweat, romantic and horny all at once. I made great haste for my father's house, full of excitement at the thought of surprising her -for of course she had no idea that I was coming - and banged the knocker so hard that passers-by turned to stare at the big, brown-faced fellow who was in such a devilish hurry.

  Old Oswald opened, just as he-always did, and gaped like a sheep as I strode past him, shouting. The hall was empty, and both strange and familiar at once, as things are after a long absence.

  "Elspeth!" I roared. "Halloo! Elspeth! I'm home!"

  Oswald was gabbling at my elbow that my father was out, and I clapped him on the back and pulled his whiskers.

  "Good for him," says I, "I hope they have to carry him home tonight. Where's your mistress? Elspeth! Hallo!"

  He just went on clucking at me, between delight and amazement, and then I heard a door open behind me, and looked round, and who should be standing there but Judy. That took me aback a bit; I hadn't thought she would still be here.

  "Hallo," says I, not too well pleased, although she was looking as handsome as ever. "Hasn't the guv'nor got a new whore yet?"

  She was about to say something, but at that moment there was a step on the staircase, and Elspeth was standing there, staring down at me. God, what a picture she was:

  corn-gold hair, red lips parted, blue eyes wide, breast heaving -

  no doubt she was wearing something, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. She looked like a startled nymph, and then the old satyr Flashy was bounding up the stairs, grabbing her, and crying:

  "I'm home! I'm home! Elspeth! I'm home!" "Oh, Harry!" says she, and then her arms were round my neck and her lips were on mine.

  If the Brigade of Guards had marched into the hall just then to command me to the Tower I'd not have heard them. I picked her up bodily, tingling at the feel of her, and without a word spoken carried her into the bedroom, and tumbled her there and then. It was superb, for I was half-drunk with excitement and longing, and when it was over I simply lay there, listening to her prattle a thousand questions, clasping her to me, kissing every inch of her, and answering God knows what. How long we spent there I can't imagine, but it was a long, golden afternoon, and ended only when the maid tapped on the door to say that my father was home again, and demanding to see me.

  So we must get dressed, and straighten ourselves, giggling like naughty children, and when Elspeth had herself in order the maid came tapping again to say that my father was growing impatient. Just to show that heroes weren't to be hurried, I caught my darling up again, and in spite of her muffled squeals of protest, mounted her once more, without the formality of undressing. Then we went down. It should have been a splendid evening, with the family welcoming the prodigal Achilles, but it wasn't. My father had aged in two years; his face was redder and his belly bigger, and his hair was quite white at the temples. He was civil enough, damned me for a young rascal, and said he was proud of me: the whole town had been talking over the reports from India, and Ellenborough's eulogies for myself and Sale and Havelock were all over the place. But his jollity soon wore off, and he drank a good deal too much at dinner, and fell into a silence at last.

  I could see then there was something wrong, although I didn't pay him much heed.

  Judy dined with us, and I gathered she was now entirely one of the household, which was bad news. I didn't care for her any better now than I had two years before, after our quarrel, and I made it pretty plain. It seemed rather steep of my father to keep his dolly at home with my wife there, and treat them as equals, and I decided to speak to him about it. But Judy was cool and civil, too, and I gathered she was ready to keep the peace if I did.

  Not that I minded her or my father much. I was all over Elspeth, revelling in the dreamy way she listened to my talk - I had forgotten what a ninny she was, but it had its compensations. She sat wide-eyed at my adventures, and I don't suppose anyone else got a word in edgeways all through the meal. I just bathed myself in that simple, dazzling smile of hers and persuaded her of what a wonderful husband she had. And later, when
we went to bed, I persuaded her more so.

  It was then, though, that the first little hint of something odd in her behaviour crossed my mind. She had dropped off to sleep, and I was lying there exhausted, listening to her breathing, and feeling somehow dissatisfied - which was strange, considering. Then it came to me, this little doubt, and I dismissed it, and then it came back.

  I had had plenty of experience with women, as you know, and can judge them in bed as well as anyone, I reckon. And it seemed to me, however hard I pushed the thought away, that Elspeth was not as she had been before I went away. I've often said that she only came to life when she was at grips with a man - well, she had been willing enough in the few hours of my homecoming, I couldn't deny, but there hadn't been any of the rapturous passion on her part that I remembered.

  These are fine things, and difficult to explain - oh, she was active enough at the time, and content enough afterwards, but she was easier about it all, somehow. If it had been Fetnab or Josette, I wouldn't have noticed, I dare say; it was their work as well as their play. But I had a different emotion about Elspeth, and it told me there was something missing. It was just a shadow, and when I woke next morning I had forgotten it. If I hadn't, the morning's events would have driven it from my mind. I came down late, and cornered my father in his study before he could slip out to his club. He was sitting with his feet along the couch, preparing for the rigours of the day with a glass of brandy, and looking liverish, but I plunged right in, and told him my thoughts about Judy.

  "Things have changed," says I, "and we can't have her seen about the place nowadays." You'll gather that two years among the Afghans had changed my attitude to parental discipline; I wasn't so easy to cow as I had been. "Oh, aye," says he, "and how have things changed?"

  "You'll find," I told him, "that I'm known about the town henceforth.

  What with India and so on. We'll be more in the public eye now, and folk will talk. It won't do for Elspeth, for one thing." "Elspeth likes her," says he.

  "Does she, though? Well, that's no matter. It ain't what Elspeth likes that counts, but what the town likes. And they won't like us if we keep this . . . this pet pussy in the house."

  "My, we're grown very nice." He sneered and took a good pull at his brandy. I could see the flush of temper on his face, and wondered why he hadn't lost it yet. "I didn't know India bred such fine sensibilities," he went on. "Quite the reverse, I'd have thought."

  "Oh, look, father, it won't do and you know it. Send her up to Leicestershire if you want, or give her a maison of her own - but she can't stay here."

  He looked at me a long while. "By God, maybe I've been wrong about you all along. I know you're a wastrel, but I never thought you had the stuff to be brave - in spite of all the tales from India. Perhaps you have, or perhaps it's just insolence. Anyway, you're on the wrong scent, boy. As I said, Elspeth likes her - and if she don't want her away, then she stays."

  "In God's name, what does it matter what Elspeth likes? She'll do as I tell her."

  "I doubt it," says he.

  "What's that?"

  He put down his glass, wiped his lips, and said:

  "You won't like it, Harry, but here it is. Who pays the piper calls the tune. And your Elspeth and her damned family have been calling the tune this year past. Hold on, now. Let me finish. You'll have plenty to say, no doubt, but it'll wait."

  I could only stare at him, not understanding.

  "We're in Queer Street, Harry. I hardly know how, myself, but there it is. I suppose I've been running pretty fast, all my life, and not taking much account of how the money went - what are lawyers for, eh? I took some bad tumbles on the turf, never heeded the expenses of this place, or Leicestershire, didn't stint any way at all - but it was the damned railway shares that really did the trick. Oh, there are fortunes being made out of 'em - the right ones. I picked the wrong ones. A year ago I was a ruined man, up to my neck with the Jews, ready to be sold up. I didn't write to you about it - what was the point? This house ain't mine, nor our place in Leicestershire; it's hers - or it will be, when old Morrison goes. God rot and damn him, it can't be too soon."

  He jumped up and walked about, finally stopping before the fireplace.

  "He met the bill, for his daughter's sake. Oh, you should have seen it! More canting, head-wagging hypocrisy than I've seen in years in Parliament, even! He had the effrontery to stand in my own hall, by God, and tell me it was a judgement on him for letting his daughter marry beneath herself! Beneath herself, d'ye hear? And I had to listen to him, and keep myself from flooring the old swine! What could I do? I was the poor relation; I still am. He's still paying the bills - through the simpering nitwit you married. He lets her have what she wants, and there you are!" "But if he's settled an allowance on her ..." "He's settled nothing! She asks him, and he provides. Damned if I would if I was him - but, there, perhaps he thinks it worth while. He seems to dote on her, and I'll say this for the chit, she's not stingy. But she's the pay-mistress, Harry, my son, and you'd best not forget it. You're a kept man, d'you see, so it don't become you, or me, to say who'll come and who'll go. And since your Elspeth is astonishingly liberal-minded -

  why, Miss Judy can stay, and be damned to you!"

  I heard him out, flabbergasted at first, but perhaps because I was a more practical man than the guv'nor, or had fewer notions of gentility, through having an aristocratic mother, I took a different view of the matter. While he splashed more brandy into his glass, I asked:

  "How much does he let her have?" "Eh? I told you, whatever she wants.

  The old bastard seems to be warm enough for ten. But you can't get your hands on it, I tell you."

  "Well, I don't mind," says I. "As long as the money's there, it don't signify who draws the orders."

  He gaped at me. "Jesus," he said, in a choked voice, "have you no pride?"

  "Probably as much as you have," says I, very cool. "You're still here, ain't you?"

  He took on the old familiar apoplectic look, so I slid out before he threw a bottle at me, and went upstairs to think. It wasn't good news, of course, but I didn't doubt I could come to a good understanding with Elspeth, which was all that mattered. The truth was, I didn't have his pride; it wasn't as if I should have to sponge off old Morrison, after all.

  No doubt I should have been upset at the thought of not inheriting my father's fortune - or what had been his fortune - but when old Morrison ceased to trouble the world I'd have Elspeth's share of the will, which would quite probably make up for all that.

  In the meantime, I tackled her on the subject at the first opportunity, and found her all brainless agreement, which was highly satisfactory.

  "What I have is yours, my love," says she, with that melting look.

  "You know you have only to ask me for anything - anything at all."

  "Much obliged," says I. "But it might be a little inconvenient, sometimes. I was thinking, if there was a regular payment, say, it would save all the tiresome business for you."

  "My father would not allow that, I'm afraid. He has been quite clear, you see."

  I saw, all right, and worked away at her, but it was no use. A fool she might be, but she did what Papa told her, and the old miser knew better than to leave a loophole for the Flashman family to crawl in and lighten him. It's a wise man that knows his own son-in-law. So it was going to have to be cash on demand - which was better than no cash at all. And she was ready enough with fifty guineas when I made my first application - it was all cut and dried, with a lawyer in Johnson's Court, who advanced her whatever she asked for, in reason.

  However, apart from these sordid matters there was quite enough to engage me in those first days at home. No one at the Horse Guards knew quite what to do with me, so I was round the clubs a good deal, and it was surprising how many people knew me all of a sudden.

  They would hail me in the Park, or shake hands in the street, and there was a steady stream of callers at home; friends of my father's whom he hadn't se
en for years popped up to meet me and greet him; invitations were showered on us; letters of congratulation piled up on the hall table and spilled on to the floor; there were paragraphs in the press about "the first of the returned heroes from Cabool and Jellulabad", and the new comic paper Punch had a cartoon in its series of "Pencillings"(25) which showed a heroic figure, some thing like me, wielding an enormous scimitar like a panto mime bandit, with hordes of blackamoors (they looked no more like Afghans than Eskimos) trying to wrest the Union Jack from me in vain. Underneath there was the caption: "A Flash(ing) Blade", which give you some idea of the standard of humour in that journal.

  However, Elspeth was enchanted with it, and bought a dozen copies; she was in whirl of delight at being the centre of so much attention - for the hero's wife gets as many of the garlands as he does, especially if she's a beauty. There was one night at the theatre when the manager insisted on taking us out of our seats to a box, and the whole audience cheered and stamped and clapped. Elspeth was radiant and stood there squeaking and clasping her hands with not the least trace of embarrassment, while I waved, very good-natured, to the mob.

  "Oh, Harry!" says she, sparkling. "I'm so happy I could die! Why, you are famous, Harry, and I . . ."