Flashman’s Lady. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ want to get in some practice, no doubt,’ says he, and promptly delivered a lecture about how he kept himself in condition, with runs and exercises and forgoing tuck, just as he had at school. From that he harked back to the dear old days, and how he’d gone for a weep and a pray at Arnold’s tomb the previous month (our revered mentor having kicked the bucket earlier in the year, and not before time, in my opinion). Excited as I was at the prospect of the Lord’s game, I’d had about my bellyful of Master Pious Brown by the time he was done, and as we took our leave of each other in Regent Street, I couldn’t resist the temptation to puncture his confounded smugness.

      ‘Can’t say how glad I am to have seen you again, old lad,’ says he, as we shook hands. ‘Delighted to know you’ll turn out for us, of course, but, you know, the best thing of all has been – meeting the new Flashman, if you know what I mean. It’s odd,’ and he fixed his thumbs in his belt and squinted wisely at me, like an owl in labour, ‘but it reminds me of what the Doctor used to say at confirmation class – about man being born again – only it’s happened to you – for me, if you understand me. At all events, I’m a better man now, I feel, than I was an hour ago. God bless you, old chap,’ says he, as I disengaged my hand before he could drag me to my knees for a quick prayer and a chorus of ‘Let us with a gladsome mind’. He asked which way I was bound.

      ‘Oh, down towards Haymarket,’ says I. ‘Get some exercise, I think.’

      ‘Capital,’ says he. ‘Nothing like a good walk.’

      ‘Well … I was thinking more of riding, don’t you know.’

      ‘In Haymarket?’ He frowned. ‘No stables thereaway, surely?’

      ‘Best in town,’ says I. ‘A few English mounts, but mostly French fillies. Riding silks black and scarlet, splendid exercise, but d----d exhausting. Care to try it?’

      For a moment he was all at a loss, and then as understanding dawned he went scarlet and white by turns, until I thought he would faint. ‘My G-d,’ he whispered hoarsely. I tapped him on the weskit with my cane, all confidential.

      ‘You remember Stumps Harrowell, the shoemaker, at Rugby, and what enormous calves he had?’ I winked while he gaped at me. ‘Well, there’s a German wench down there whose poonts are even bigger. Just about your weight; do you a power of good.’

      He made gargling noises while I watched him with huge enjoyment.

      ‘So much for the new Flashman, eh?’ says I. ‘Wish you hadn’t invited me to play with your pure-minded little friends? Well, it’s too late, young Tom; you’ve shaken hands on it, haven’t you?’

      He pulled himself together and took a breath. ‘You may play if you wish,’ says he. ‘More fool I for asking you – but if you were the man I had hoped you were, you would—’

      ‘Cry off gracefully – and save you from the pollution of my company? No, no, my boy – I’ll be there, and just as fit as you are. But I’ll wager I enjoy my training more.’

      ‘Flashman,’ cries he, as I turned away, ‘don’t go to – to that place, I beseech you. It ain’t worthy—’

      ‘How would you know?’ says I. ‘See you at Lord’s.’ And I left him full of Christian anguish at the sight of the hardened sinner going down to the Pit. The best of it was, he was probably as full of holy torment at the thought of my foul fornications as he would have been if he’d galloped that German tart himself; that’s unselfishness for you. But she’d have been wasted on him, anyway.

      However, just because I’d punctured holy Tom’s daydreams, don’t imagine that I took my training lightly. Even while the German wench was recovering her breath afterwards and ringing for refreshments, I was limbering up on the rug, trying out my old round-arm swing; I even got some of her sisters in to throw oranges to me for catching practice, and you never saw anything jollier than those painted dollymops scampering about in their corsets, shying fruit. We made such a row that the other customers put their heads out, and it turned into an impromptu innings on the landing, whores versus patrons (I must set down the rules for brothel cricket some day, if I can recall them; cover point took on a meaning that you won’t find in ‘Wisden’, I know). The whole thing got out of hand, of course, with furniture smashed and the sluts shrieking and weeping, and the madame’s bullies put me out for upsetting her disorderly house, which seemed a trifle hard.

      Next day, though, I got down to it in earnest, with a ball in the garden. To my delight none of my old skill seemed to have deserted me, the thigh which I’d broken in Afghanistan never even twinged, and I crowned my practice by smashing the morning-room window while my father-in-law was finishing his breakfast; he’d been reading about the Rebecca Riots³ over his porridge, it seemed, and since he’d spent his miserable life squeezing and sweating his millworkers, and had a fearful guilty conscience according, his first reaction to the shattering glass was that the starving mob had risen at last and were coming to give him his just deserts.

      ‘Ye d----d Goth!’ he spluttered, fishing the fragments out of his whiskers. ‘Ye don’t care who ye maim or murder; I micht ha’e been killed! Have ye nae work tae go tae?’ And he whined on about ill-conditioned loafers who squandered their time and his money in selfish pleasure, while I nuzzled Elspeth good morning over her coffee service, marvelling as I regarded her golden-haired radiance and peach-soft skin that I had wasted strength on that suety frau the evening before, when this had been waiting between the covers at home.

      ‘A fine family ye married intae,’ says her charming sire. ‘The son stramashin’ aboot destroyin’ property while the feyther’s lyin’ abovestairs stupefied wi’ drink. Is there nae mair toast?’

      ‘Well, it’s our property and our drink,’ says I, helping myself to kidneys. ‘Our toast, too, if it comes to that.’

      ‘Aye, is’t, though, my buckie?’ says he, looking more like a spiteful goblin than ever. ‘And who peys for’t? No’ you an’ yer wastrel parent. Aye, an’ ye can keep yer sullen sniffs to yersel’, my lassie,’ he went on to Elspeth. ‘We’ll hae things aboveboard, plump an’ plain. It’s John Morrison foots the bills, wi’ good Scots siller, hard-earned, for this fine husband o’ yours an’ the upkeep o’ his hoose an’ family; jist mind that.’ He crumpled up his paper, which was sodden with spilled coffee. ‘Tach! There my breakfast sp’iled for me. “Our property” an’ “our drink”, ye say? Grand airs and patched breeks!’ And out he strode, to return in a moment, snarling. ‘And since you’re meant tae be managin’ this establishment, my girl, ye’ll see tae it that we hae marmalade after this, and no’ this d----d French jam! Con-fee – toor! Huh! Sticky rubbish!’ And he slammed the door behind him.

      ‘Oh, dear,’ sighs Elspeth. ‘Papa is in his black mood. What a shame you broke the window, dearest.’

      ‘Papa is a confounded blot,’ says I, wolfing kidneys. ‘But now that we’re rid of him, give us a kiss.’

      You’ll understand that we were an unusual menage. I had married Elspeth perforce, two years before when I had the ill-fortune to be stationed in Scotland, and had been detected tupping her in the bushes – it had been the altar or pistols for two with her fire-eating uncle. Then, when my drunken guv’nor had gone smash over railway shares, old Morrison had found himself saddled with the upkeep of the Flashman establishment, which he’d had to assume for his daughter’s sake.

      A pretty state, you’ll allow, for the little miser wouldn’t give me or the guv’nor a penny direct, but doled it out to Elspeth, on whom I had to rely for spending money. Not that she wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ