I near as a toucher sealed it up again and told the footman to give it back to whoever had brought it – but I didn’t. Warm work – but three hundred is three hundred – and it was a gift, wasn’t it? I could always deny I’d ever seen it – G-d, I was an innocent then, for all my campaign experience.
This, of course, took place at the house which Haslam had taken just outside Canterbury, very splendid, gravel walks, fine lawns, shrubbery and trees, gaslight throughout, beautifully-appointed rooms, best of food and drink, flunkeys everywhere, and go-as-you-please. There were about a dozen house guests, for it was a great rambling place, and Haslam had seen to every comfort. He gave a sumptuous party on that first Monday night, at which Mynn and Felix were present, and the talk was all cricket, of course, but there were any number of ladies, too, including Mrs Leo Lade, smouldering at me across the table from under a heap of sausage curls, and in a dress so décolleté that her udders were almost in her soup. That’s one over we’ll bowl this week that won’t be a maiden, thinks I, and flashed my most loving smile to Elspeth, who was sparkling radiantly beside Don Solomon at the top of the table.
Presently, however, her sparkle was wiped clean away, for Don Solomon was understood to say that this week would be his last fling in England; he was leaving at the end of the month to visit his estates in the East, and had no notion when he would return; it might be years, he said, at which there were genuine expressions of sorrow round the table, for those assembled knew a dripping roast when they saw one. Without the lavish Don Solomon, there would be one luxurious establishment less for the Society hyenas to guzzle at. Elspeth was quite put out.
“But dear Don Solomon, what shall we do? Oh, you’re teasing – why, your tiresome estates will do admirably without you, for I’m sure you employ only the cleverest people to look after them.” She pouted prettily. “You would not be so cruel to your friends, surely – Mrs Lade, we shan’t let him, shall we?”
Solomon laughed and patted her hand. “My dear Diana,” says he – Diana had been his nickname for her ever since he’d tried to teach her archery – “you may be sure nothing but harsh necessity would take me from such delightful company as your own – and Harry’s yonder, and all of you. But – a man must work, and my work is overseas. So—” and he shook his head, his smooth, handsome face smiling ruefully. “It will be a sore wrench – sorest of all in that I shall miss both of you” – and he looked from Elspeth to me and back again – “above all the rest, for you have been to me like a brother and sister.” And, d---e, the fellow’s great dark eyes were positively glistening; the rest of the table murmured sympathetically, all but old Morrison, who was champing away at his blancmange and finding bones in it, by the sound of him.
At this Elspeth was so overcome that she began piping her eye, and her tits shook so violently that the old Duke, on Solomon’s other side, coughed his false teeth into his wine glass and had to be put to rights by the butler. Solomon, for once, was looking a little embarrassed; he shrugged and gave me a look that was almost appealing. “I’m sorry, old boy,” says he, “but I mean it.” I couldn’t fathom this – he might be sorry to miss Elspeth; what man wouldn’t? But had I been so friendly? – well, I’d been civil enough, and I was her husband; perhaps that charming manner of mine which Tom Hughes mentioned had had its effect on this emotional dago. Anyway, something seemed called for.
“Well, Don,” says I, “we’ll all be sorry to lose you, and that’s a fact. You’re a d----d stout chap – that is, I mean, you’re one of the best, and couldn’t be better if … if you were English.” I wasn’t going to gush all over him, you understand, but the company murmured “Hear, hear,” and after a moment Mynn tapped the table to second me. “Well,” says I, “let’s drink his health, then.” And everyone did, while Solomon gave me his bland smile, inclining his head.
“I know,” says he, “just how great a compliment that is. I thank you – all of you, and especially you, my dear Harry. I only wish—” and then he stopped, shaking his head. “But no, that would be too much to ask.”
“Oh, ask anything, Don!” cries Elspeth, all idiot-imploring. “You know we could not refuse you!”
He said no, no, it had been a foolish thought, and at that of course she was all over him to know what it was. So after a moment, toying with his wine-glass, he says: “Well, you’ll think it a very silly notion, I daresay – but what I was about to propose, my dear Diana, for Harry and yourself, and for your father, whom I count among my wisest friends—” and he inclined his head to old Morrison, who was assuring Mrs Lade that he didn’t want any blancmange, but he’d like anither helpin’ o’ yon cornflour puddin’ “—I was about to say, since I must go – why do the three of you not come with me?” And he smiled shyly at us in turn.
I stared at the fellow to see if he was joking; Elspeth, all blonde bewilderment, looked at me and then at Solomon, open-mouthed.
“Come with you?”
“It’s only to the other side of the world, after all,” says he, whimsically. “No, no – I am quite serious; it is not as bad as that. You know me well enough to understand that I wouldn’t propose anything that you would not find delightful. We should cruise, in my steam-brig – it’s as well-appointed as any royal yacht, you know, and we’d have the most splendid holiday. We would touch wherever we liked – Lisbon, Cadiz, the Cape, Bombay, Madras – exactly as the fancy took us. Oh, it would be quite capital!” He leaned towards Elspeth, smiling. “Think of the places we’d see! The delight it would give me, Diana, to show you the wonder of Africa, as one sees it at dawn from the quarterdeck – such colours as you cannot imagine! The shores of the Indian Ocean – yes, the coral strand! Ah, believe me, until you have anchored off Singapore, or cruised the tropical coasts of Sumatra and Java and Borneo, and seen that glorious China Sea, where it is always morning – oh, my dear, you have seen nothing!”
Nonsense, of course; the Orient stinks. Always did. But Elspeth was gazing at him in rapture, and then she turned eagerly to me. “Oh, Harry – could we?”
“Out o’ the question,” says I. “It’s the back of beyond.”
“In these days?” cries Solomon. “Why, with steam you may be in Singapore in – oh, three months at most. Say, three months as my guests while we visit my estates – and you would learn, Diana, what it means to be a queen in the Orient, I assure you – and three months to return. You’d be home again by next Easter.”
“Oh, Harry!” Elspeth was positively squeaking with joy. “Oh, Harry – may we? Oh, please, Harry!” The chaps at the table were nodding admiringly, and the ladies murmuring enviously; the old Duke was heard to say that it was an adventure, d----d if it wasn’t, and if he was a younger man, by George, wouldn’t he jump at the chance?
Well, they weren’t getting me East again; once had been enough. Besides, I wasn’t going anywhere on the charity of some rich dago show-off who’d taken a shine to my wife. And there was another reason, which enabled me to put a good face on my refusal.
“Can’t be done, m’dear,” says I. “Sorry, but I’m a soldier with a living to make. Duty and the Life Guards call, what? I’m desolate to deny you what I’m sure would be the jolliest trip” – I felt a pang, I’ll admit, at seeing that lovely child face fall – “but I can’t go, you see. I’m afraid, Don, we’ll have to decline your kind offer.”
He shrugged good-humouredly. “That’s settled, then. A pity, but—” he smiled consolingly at Elspeth, who was looking down-in-the-mouth “—perhaps another year. Unless, in Harry’s enforced absence, your father could be persuaded to accompany us?”
It was said so natural it took my breath away, but as it sank home I had to bite back an angry refusal. You b-----d, thinks I, that’s the game, is it? Wait till old Flashy’s put himself out of the running, and then innocently propose a scheme to get my wife far away where you can cock a leg over her at leisure. It was plain as a pikestaff; all my dormant suspicions of this smooth tub of nigger suet came back with a rush, but I k
ept mum while Elspeth looked down the table towards me – and, bless her, it was a doubtful look.
“But … but it would be no fun without Harry,” says she, and if ever I loved the girl it was then. “I … I don’t know – what does Papa say?”
Papa, who appeared to be still tunnelling away at his pudding, had missed nothing, you may be sure, but he kept quiet while Solomon explained the proposal. “You remember, sir, we spoke of the possibility that you might accompany me to the East, to see for yourself the opportunities of business expansion,” he was adding, but Morrison cut him short in his charming way.
“You spoke of it, no’ me,” says he, busily engulfing blancmange. “I’ve mair than enough o’ affairs here, withoot gallivantin’ tae China at my time o’ life.” He waved his spoon. “Forbye, husband an’ wife should be thegither – it was bad enough when Harry yonder had tae be away in India, an’ my wee lassie near heartbroken.” He made a noise which the company took for a sentimental sniff; myself I think it was another spoonful being pried loose. “Na, na – I’ll need a guid reason afore I’ll stir forth o’ England.”
And he got it – to this day I can’t be certain that it was contrived by Solomon, but I’ll wager it was. For next morning the old hound was taken ill again – I don’t know if surfeit of blancmange can cause nervous collapse, but by afternoon he was groaning in bed, shuddering as with a fever, and Solomon insisted on summoning his own medico from Town, a dundreary-looking cove with a handle to his name and a line in unctuous gravity that must have been worth five thousand a year in Mayfair. He looked down solemnly at the sufferer, who was huddled under the clothes like a rat in its burrow, two beady eyes in a wrinkled face, and his nose quivering in apprehension.
“Overstrained,” says the sawbones, when he had completed his examination and caught the tune of Morrion’s whimpering. “The system is simply tired; that is all. Of organic deterioration there is no sign whatever; internally, my dear sir, you are sound as I am – as I hope I am, ha-ha!” He beamed like a bishop. “But the machine, while not in need of repair, requires a rest – a long rest.”
“Is it serious, docter?” quavers Morrison. Internally, as the quack said, he might be in A1 trim, but his exterior suggested James I dying.
“Certainly not – unless you make it so,” says the poultice-walloper. He shook his head in censorious admiration. “You captains of commerce – you sacrifice yourselves without thought for personal health, as you labour for family and country and mankind. But, my dear sir, it won’t do, you know. You forget that there is a limit – and you have reached it.”
“Could ye no’ gi’ me a line for a boatle?” croaks the captain of commerce, and when this had been translated the medico shook his head.
“I can prescribe,” says he, “but no medicine could be as efficacious as – oh, a few months in the Italian lakes, or on the French coast. Warmth, sunshine, rest – complete rest in congenial company – that is my ‘line’ for you, sir. I won’t be answerable for the consequences if you don’t take it.”
Well, there it was. In two seconds I had foreseen what was to follow – Solomon’s recollection that he had only yesterday proposed just such a holiday, the quack’s booming agreement that a sea voyage in comfort was the ideal thing, Morrison’s reluctance being eventually overborne by Elspeth’s entreaties and the pill-slinger’s stern admonition – you could have set it all to music and sung the d----d thing. Then they all looked at me, and I said no.
There followed painful private scenes between Elspeth and me. I said if old Morrison wanted to sail away with Don Solomon, he was more than welcome. She replied that it was unthinkable for dear Papa to go without her to look after him; it was absolutely her duty to accept Don Solomon’s generous offer and accompany the old goat. If I insisted on staying at home in the Army, of course she would be desolate without me – but why, oh why, could I not come anyway? – what did the Army matter, we had money enough, and so forth. I said no again, and added that it was a piece of impudence of Solomon’s even to suggest that she should go without me, at which she burst into tears and said I was odiously jealous, not only of her, but of Don Solomon’s breeding and address and money, just because I hadn’t any myself, and I was spitefully denying her a little pleasure, and there could be no possible impropriety with dear Papa to chaperon her, and I was trying to shovel the old sod into an early grave, or words to that effect.
I left her wailing, and when Solomon tried to persuade me later himself, took the line that military duty made the trip impossible for me, and I couldn’t bear to be parted from Elspeth. He sighed, but said he understood only too well – in my shoes, he said with disarming frankness, he’d do the same. I wondered for a moment if I had wronged him – for I know I tend to judge everyone by myself, and while I’m usually not far wrong to do so, there are decent and disinterested folk about, here and there. I’ve seen some.
Old Morrison, by the way, didn’t say a word; he could have forced my hand, of course, but being as true a Presbyterian hypocrite as ever robbed an orphan, he held that a wife should abide by her husband’s rule, and wouldn’t interfere between Elspeth and me. So I continued to say “no”, and Elspeth sulked until the time came to put on her next new bonnet.
So a couple of days passed, in which I played cricket for Mynn’s side, tumbling a few wickets with my shiverers, and slogging a few runs (not many, but 18 in one innings, which pleased me, and catching out Pilch again, one hand, very low down, when he tried to cut Mynn past point and I had to go full length to it. Pilch swore it was a bump, but it wasn’t – you may be sure I’d tell you if it had been). Meanwhile Elspeth basked in admiration and the gay life, Solomon was the perfect host and escort, old Morrison sat on the terrace grumbling and reading sermons and share prices, and Judy promenaded with Elspeth, looking cattish and saying nothing.
Then on Friday things began to happen, and as so often is the case with catastrophe, all went splendidly at first. All week I’d been trying to arrange an assignation with the tantalizing Mrs Leo Lade, but what with my own busy affairs and the fact that the old Duke kept a jealous eye on her, I’d been out of luck. It was just a question of time and place, for she was as ready as I; indeed, we’d near got to grips on the Monday after dinner, when we strolled in the garden, but I’d no sooner got her panting among the privet with her teeth half-way through my ear than that bl----d minx Judy came to summon us to hear Elspeth sing “The Ash Grove” in the drawing-room; it would be Judy, smiling her knowing smile, telling us to be sure not to miss the treat.
However, on Friday morning Elspeth went off with Solomon to visit some picture gallery, Judy was shopping with some of the guests, the house was empty except for old Morrison on the terrace, and Mrs Lade bowled up presently to say that the Duke was abed with an attack of gout. For show’s sake we made small talk with Morrison, which infuriated him, and then went our separate ways in leisurely fashion, meeting again in the drawing-room in a fine frenzy of fumbling and escaping steam. We weren’t new to the business, either of us, so I had her breasts out with one hand and my breeches down with the other while I was still kicking the door to, and she completed her undressing while we were positively humping the mutton all the way to the couch, which argued sound training on her part. By George, she was a heavy woman, but nimble as an eel for all her elegant poundage; I can’t think offhand of a partner who could put you through as many different mounting-drills in the course of one romp, except perhaps Elspeth herself when she had a drink in her.
It was exhilarating work, and I was just settling myself for the finish, and thinking, we’ll have to have more of this another time, when I heard a sound that galvanized me so suddenly that it’s a wonder the couch didn’t give way – rapid footsteps were approaching the drawing-room door. I took stock – breeches down, one shoe off, miles from the window or any convenient cover, Mrs Lade kneeling on the couch, me peering from behind through her feathered headdress (which she had forgotten to remove; quite a compliment, I
remember thinking), the doorknob turning. Caught, hopeless, not a chance of escape – nothing for it but to hide my face in the nape of her neck and trust that the visible side of me wouldn’t be recognized by whoever came in. For they wouldn’t linger – not in 1843 – unless it was the Duke, and those footsteps didn’t belong to a gout patient.
The door opened, the footsteps stopped – and then there was what a lady novelist would call a pregnant pause, lasting about three hours, it seemed to me, and broken only by Mrs Lade’s ecstatic moanings; I gathered she was unaware that we were observed. I stole a peep through her feathers at the mirror above the fireplace – and almost had convulsions, for it was Solomon reflected in the doorway, his hand on the latch, taking in the scene.
He never even blinked an eye; then, as other footsteps sounded somewhere behind him he stepped back, and as the door closed I heard him saying: “No, there is no one here; let us try the conservatory.” Dago or not, he was a d----d considerate host, that one.
The door hadn’t closed before I was trying to disengage, but without success, for Mrs Lade’s hands reached back in an instant, clamping her claws into my rear, her head tilting back beside mine. “No, no, no, not yet!” gasps she, chewing away at me. “Don’t go!”
“The door,” I explained. “Must lock the door. Someone might see.”
“Don’t leave me!” she cried, and I doubt if she knew where she was, even, for her eyes were rolling in her head, and d----d if I could get loose. Mind you, I was reluctant; torn two ways, as it were.
“The key,” I mumbled, thrusting away. “Only take a moment-back directly.”
Flashman Papers Omnibus Page 65
