01 - Flashman fp-1

by George MacDonald Fraser

  She didn't finish, but I know she was thinking that she was famous too. At that moment I loved her all the more for thinking it.

  The parties in that first week were too many to count, and always we were the centre of attraction. They had a military flavour, for thanks to the news from Afghanistan, and China - where we had also been doing well(26) - the army was in fashion more than usual. The more senior officers and the mamas claimed me, which left Elspeth to the young blades. This delighted her, of course, and pleased me - I wasn't jealous, and indeed took satisfaction in seeing them clustering like flies round a jampot which they could watch but couldn't taste.

  She knew a good many of them, and I learned that during my absence in India quite a few of the young sparks had squired her in the Park or ridden in the Row with her - which was natural enough, she being an army wife. But I just kept an eye open, all the same, and cold-shouldered one or two when they came too close - there was one in particular, a young Life Guards captain called Watney, who was often at the house, and was her riding partner twice in the week; he was a tall, curly-lipped exquisite with a lazy eye, who made himself very easy at home until I gave him the about-turn.

  "I can attend Mrs Flashman very well, thank'ee," says I.

  "None better," says he, "I'm sure. I had only hoped that you might relinquish her for a half-hour or so."

  "Not for a minute," says I.

  "Oh, come now," says he, patronising me, "this is very selfish. I am sure Mrs Flashman wouldn't agree."

  "I'm sure she would."

  "Would you care to test it?" says he, with an infuriating smile. I could have boxed his ears, but I kept my temper very well.

  "Go to the devil, you mincing pimp," I told him, and left him standing in the hall. I went straight to Elspeth's room, told her what had happened, and cautioned her against seeing Watney again.

  "Which one is he?" she asked, admiring her hair in the mirror.

  "Fellow with a face like a horse and a haw-haw voice."

  "There are so many like that," says she. "I can't tell one from the other. Harry, darling, would I look well with ringlets, do you think?"

  This pleased me, as you can guess, and I forgot the incident at once. I remember it now, for it was that same day that everything happened all at once. There are days like that; a chapter in your life ends and another one begins, and nothing is the same afterwards.

  I was to call at the Horse Guards to see my Uncle Bindley, and I told Elspeth I would not be home until the afternoon, when we were to go out to tea at someone-or-others. But when I got to Horse Guards my uncle bundled me straight into a carriage and bore me off to meet - of all people - the Duke of Wellington. I'd never seen him closer than a distance, and it made me fairly nervous to stand in his ante-room after Bindley had been ushered in to him, and hear their voices murmuring behind the closed door. Then it opened, and the Duke came out; he was white-haired and pretty wrinkled at this time, but that damned hooked nose would have marked him anywhere, and his eyes were like gimlets.

  "Ah, this is the young man," says he, shaking hands. For all his years he walked with the spring of a jockey, and was very spruce in his grey coat.

  "The town is full of you just now," says he, looking me in the eyes.

  "It is as it should be. It was a damned good bit of work - about the only good thing in the whole business, by God, whatever Ellenborough and Palmerston may say."

  Hudson, thinks I, you should see me now; short of the heavens opening, there was nothing to be added.

  The Duke asked me a few sharp questions, about Akbar Khan, and the Afghans generally, and how the troops had behaved on the retreat, which I answered as well as I could. He listened with his head back, and said "Hmm," and nodded, and then said briskly:

  "It is a thorough shame that it has been so shockingly managed.

  But it is always the way with these damned politicals; there is no telling them. If I had had someone like McNaghten with me in Spain, Bindley, I'd still be at Lisbon, I dare say. And what is to happen to Mr Flashman? Have you spoken to Hardinge?"

  Bindley said they would have to find a regiment for me, and the Duke nodded.

  "Yes, he is a regimental man. You were in the 11th Hussars, as I remember? Well, you won't want to go back there," and he gave me a shrewd look. "His lordship is no better disposed to Indian officers now than he ever was, the more fool he. I have thought of telling him, more than once, that I'm an Indian officer myself, but he would probably just have given me a setdown. Well, Mr Flash-man, I am to take you to Her Majesty this afternoon, so you must be here at one o'clock." And with that he turned back to his room, said a word to Bindley, and shut the door.

  Well, you can guess how all this dazzled me; to have the great Duke chatting to me, to learn that I was to be presented to the Queen -

  all this had me walking on the clouds. I went home in a rosy dream, hugging myself at the way Elspeth would take the news; this would make her damned father sit up and take notice, all right, and it would be odd if I couldn't squeeze something out of him in consequence, if I played my cards well.

  I hurried upstairs, but she wasn't in her room; I called, and eventually old Oswald appeared and said she had gone out.

  "Where away?" says I.

  "Well, sir," says he, looking mighty sour, "I don't rightly know."

  "With Miss Judy?"

  "No, sir," says he, "not with Miss Judy. Miss Judy is downstairs, sir."

  There was something damned queer about his manner, but there was nothing more to be got from him, so I went downstairs and found Judy playing with a kitten in the morning room.

  "Where's my wife?" says I.

  "Out with Captain Watney," says she, cool as you please. "Riding.

  Here, kitty-kitty. In the Park, I dare say."

  For a minute I didn't understand.

  "You're wrong," says I. "I sent him packing two hours ago."

  "Well, they went riding half an hour ago, so he must have unpacked." She picked up the kitten and began to stroke it.

  "What the devil d'you mean?"

  "I mean they've gone out together. What else?"

  "Dammit," says I, furious. "I told her not to."

  She went on stroking, and looked at me with her crooked little smile.

  "She can't have understood you, then," says she. "Or she would not have gone, would she?"

  I stood staring at her, feeling a chill suddenly settle on my insides.

  "What are you hinting, damn you?" I said. "Nothing at all. It is you who are imagining. Do you know, I believe you're jealous."

  "Jealous, by God! And what have I to be jealous about?"

  "You should know best, surely."

  I stood looking thunder at her, torn between anger and fear of what she seemed to be implying.

  "Now, look'ee here," I said, "I want to know what the blazes you're at. If you have anything to say about my wife, by God, you'd best be careful ..."

  My father came stumping into the hall at that minute, curse him, and calling for Judy. She got up and walked past me, the kitten in her arms. She stopped at the door, gave me a crooked, spiteful smile, and says:

  "What were you doing in India? Reading? Singing hymns? Or did you occasionally go riding in the Park?"

  And with that she slammed the door, leaving me shot to bits, with horrible thoughts growing in my mind. Suspicion doesn't come gradually; it springs up suddenly, and grows with every breath it takes. If you have a foul mind, as I have, you think foul thoughts readier than clean ones, so that even as I told myself that Judy was a lying bitch trying to frighten me with implications, and that Elspeth was incapable of being false, at the same time I had a vision of her rolling naked in a bed with her arms round Watney's neck. God, it wasn't possible! Elspeth was an innocent, a completely honest fool, who hadn't even known what "fornication" meant when I first met her . . .

  That hadn't stopped her bounding into the bushes with me, though, at the first invitation. Oh, but it was still unthinka
ble! She was my wife, and as amiable and proper as a girl could be; she was utterly different from swine like me, she had to be. I couldn't be as wrong in my judgement as that, could I?

  I was standing torturing myself with these happy notions, and then common sense came to the rescue. Good God, all she had done was go riding with Watney - why, she hadn't even known who he was when I warned her against him that morning. And she was the most scatter-brained thing in petticoats; besides, she wasn't of the mettle that trollops are made of. Too meek and gentle and submissive by half-she wouldn't have dared. The mere thought of what I'd do would have terrified . . . what would I do? Disown her? Divorce her? Throw her out? By God, I couldn't! I didn't have the means; my father was right!

  For a moment I was appalled. If Elspeth was making a mistress for Watney, or anyone else, there was nothing I could do about it. I could cut her to ribbons, oh, aye, and what then? Take to the streets? I couldn't stay in the army, or in town, even, without means . . .

  Oh, but to the devil with this. It was pure moonshine, aye, and deliberately put into my mind to make me jealous by that brown-headed slut of my father's. This was her making mischief to get her own back for the hammering I'd given her three years ago. That was it.

  Why, I didn't have the least reason to think ill of Elspeth; everything about her denied Judy's imputations - and, by God, I'd pay that cow out for her lies and sneers. I'd find a way, all right, and God help her when I did.

  With my thoughts back in more genial channels, I remembered the news I'd been coming home to tell Elspeth - well, she would have to wait for it until after I'd been to the Palace. Serve her right for going out with Watney, damn him. In the meantime, I spent the next hour looking out my best clothes, arranging my hair, which was grown pretty long and romantic, and cursing Oswald as he helped me with my cravat - I'd have been happier in uniform, but I didn't have a decent one to my name, having spent my time in mufti since I came home. I was so excited that I didn't bother to lunch, but dandied myself up to the nines, and then hurried off to meet His Nose-ship.

  There was a brougham at his door when I arrived, and I didn't have to wait two minutes before he came down, all dressed and damning the secretary and valet who were stalking along behind him.

  "There probably isn't a damned warming-pan in the place," he was barking. "And it is necessary that every-thing should be in the finest order. Find out if Her Majesty takes her own bed-linen when she travels. I imagine she does, but don't for God's sake go inquiring indiscreetly. Ask Arbuthnot; he'll know. You may be sure that something will be amiss, in the end, but it can't be helped. Ah, Flashman,"

  and he ran his eye over me like a drill sergeant. "Come along, then."

  There was a little knot of urchins and people to raise a cheer as he came out, and some shouted: "There's the Flash cove! Hurrah!" by which they meant me. There was a little wait after we got in, because the coachman had some trouble with his reins, and a little crowd gathered while the Duke fretted and swore.

  "Dammit, Johnson," growls he, "hurry up or we shall have all London here."

  The crowd cheered and we rolled off in the pleasant autumn sunshine, with the guttersnipes running behind whooping and people turning on the pavements to lift their hats as the Great Duke passed by.

  "If I knew how news travelled I'd be a wiser man," says he. "Can you imagine it? I'll lay odds they know in Dover by this time that I am taking you to Her Majesty. You've never had any dealings with royalty, I take it?"

  "Only in Afghanistan, my lord," says I, and he barked a little short laugh.

  "They probably have less ceremonial than we do," he says. "It is a most confounded bore. Let me tell you, sir, never become a field-marshal and commander-in-chief. It is very fine, but it means your sovereign will honour you by coming to stay, and not a bed in the place worth a damn. I have more anxiety over the furnishing of Walmer, Mr Flashman, than I did over the works at Torres Vedras."(27)

  "If you are as successful this time as you were then, my lord,"

  says I, buttering him, "you have no cause for alarm."

  "Huh!" says he, and gave me a sharp look. But he was silent for a minute or two and then asked me if I felt nervous.

  "There is no need why you should be," says he. "Her Majesty is most gracious, although it is never as easy, of course, as it was with her predecessors. King William was very easy, very kind, and made people entirely at home. It is altogether more formal now, and pretty stiff, but if you stay by me and keep your mouth shut, you'll do."

  I ventured to say that I'd felt happier at the prospect of charging into a band of Ghazis than I did at going to the palace, which was rubbish, of course, but I thought was probably the thing to say.

  "Damned nonsense," says he, sharply. "You wouldn't rather anything of the sort. But I know that the feeling is much the same, for I've experienced both myself. The important thing is never to show it, as I am never tired of telling young men. Now tell me about these Ghazis, who I understand are the best soldiers the Afghans can show."

  He was on my home ground there, and I told him about the Ghazis and Gilzais and Pathans and Douranis, to which he listened very carefully until I realised that we were rolling through the palace gates, and there were the Guards presenting arms, and a flunkey running to hold the door and set the steps, and officers clicking to attention, and a swarm of people about us.

  "Come on," says the Duke, and led the way through a small doorway, and I have a hazy recollection of stairs and liveried footmen, and long carpeted corridors, and great chandeliers, and soft-footed officials escorting us - but my chief memory is of the slight, grey-coated figure in front of me, striding along and people getting out of his way.

  We brought up outside two great double doors with a flunkey in a wig at either side, and a small fat man in a black tail coat bobbed in front of us, and darted forward muttering to twitch at my collar and smooth my lapel.

  "Apologies," he twittered. "A brush here." And he snapped his fingers. A brush appeared and he flicked at my coat, very deftly, and shot a glance in the Duke's direction. "Take that damned thing away,"

  says the Duke, "and stop fussing. We know how to dress without your assistance."

  The little fat man looked reproachful and stood aside, motioning to the flunkeys. They opened the door, and with my heart thumping against my ribs I heard a rich, strong voice announce:

  "His Grace the Duke of Wellington. Mr Flashman." It was a large, magnificently furnished drawing-room, with a carpet stretching away between mirrored walls and a huge chandelier overhead. There were a few people at the other end, two men standing near the fireplace, a girl sitting on a couch with an older woman standing behind, and I think another man and a couple of women near by. We walked forward towards them, the Duke a little in advance, and he stopped short of the couch and bowed.

  "Your Majesty," says he, "may I have the honour to present Mr Flashman."

  And only then did I realise who the girl was. We are accustomed to think of her as the old queen, but she was ? just a child then, rather plump, and pretty enough beneath the neck. Her eyes were large and popped a little, and her teeth stuck out too much, but she smiled and murmured in reply - by this time I was bowing my backside off, naturally. When I straightened up she was looking at me, and Wellington was reciting briskly about Kabul and jallalabad -

  "distinguished defence", "Mr Flashman's notable behaviour" are the only phrases that stay in my mind. When he stopped she inclined her head at him, and then said to me:

  "You are the first we have seen of those who served so bravely in Afghanistan, Mr Flashman. It is realty a great joy to see you returned safe and well. We have heard the most glowing reports of your gallantry, and it is most gratifying to be able to express our thanks and admiration for such brave and loyal service."

  Well, she couldn't have said fairer than that I suppose, even if she did recite it like a parrot. I just made a rumbling sound in my throat and ducked my head again. She had a thick, oddly-accent
ed voice, and came down heavy on her words every now and then, nodding as she did so.

  "Are you entirely recovered from your wounds?" she asked.

  "Very well, thank'ee, your majesty," says I.

  "You are exceedingly brown," says one of the men, and the heavy German accent startled me. I'd noticed him out of the tail of my eye, leaning against the mantel, with one leg crossed over the other. So this is Prince Albert, I thought; what hellish-looking whiskers.

  "You must be as brown as an Aff-ghan," says he, and they laughed politely.

  I told him I had passed for one, and he opened his eyes and said did I speak the language, and would I say some-thing in it. So without thinking I said the first words that came into my head: "Hamare ghali ana, achha din," which is what the harlots chant at passers-by, and means "Good day, come into our street". He seemed very interested, but the man beside him stiffened and stared hard at me.

  "What does it mean, Mr Flashman?" says the Queen.

  "It is a Hindu greeting, marm," says the Duke, and my guts turned over as I recalled that he had served in India.

  "Why, of course," says she, "we are quite an Indian gathering, with Mr Macaulay here." The name meant nothing to me then; he was looking at me damned hard, though, with his pretty little mouth set hard. I later learned that he had spent several years in government out there, so my fat-headed remark had not been lost on him, either.