The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of my own, and can say that most officers are bad, and the higher you go, the worse they get, myself included. We were supposed to be rotten with incompetence in the Crimea, for example, when purchase was at its height, but the bloody mess they made in South Africa recently seems to have been just as bad – and they didn’t buy their commissions.

      However, at this time I’d no thought beyond being a humble cornet, and living high in a crack regiment, which was one of the reasons I had fixed on the 11th Dragoons. Also, that they were close to town.

      I said nothing of this to Uncle Bindley, but acted very keen, as though I was on fire to win my spurs against the Mahrattas or the Sikhs. He sniffed, and looked down his nose, which was very high and thin, and said he had never suspected martial ardour in me.

      “However, a fine leg in pantaloons and a penchant for folly seem to be all that is required today,” he went on. “And you can ride, as I collect?”

      “Anything on legs, uncle,” says I.

      “That is of little consequence, anyway. What concerns me is that you cannot, by report, hold your liquor. You’ll agree that being dragged from a Rugby pothouse, reeling, I believe, is no recommendation to an officers’ mess?”

      I hastened to tell him that the report was exaggerated.

      “I doubt it,” he said. “The point is, were you silent in your drunken state, or did you rave? A noisy drunkard is intolerable; a passive one may do at a pinch. At least, if he has money; money will excuse virtually any conduct in the army nowadays, it seems.”

      This was a favourite sneer of his; I may say that my mother’s family, while quality, were not over-rich. However, I took it all meekly.

      “Yes,” he went on, “I’ve no doubt that with your allowance you will be able either to kill or ruin yourself in a short space of time. At that, you will be no worse than half the subalterns in the service, if no better. Ah, but wait. It was the 11th Light Dragoons, wasn’t it?”

      “Oh, yes, uncle.”

      “And you are determined on that regiment?”

      “Why, yes,” I said, wondering a little.

      “Then you may have a little diversion before you go the way of all flesh,” said he, with a knowing smile. “Have you, by any chance, heard of the Earl of Cardigan?”

      I said I had not, which shows how little I had taken notice of military affairs.

      “Extraordinary. He commands the 11th, you know. He succeeded to the title only a year or so ago, while he was in India with the regiment. A remarkable man. I understand he makes no secret of his intention to turn the 11th into the finest cavalry regiment in the army.”

      “He sounds like the very man for me,” I said, all eagerness.

      “Indeed, indeed. Well, we mustn’t deny him the service of so ardent a subaltern, must we? Certainly the matter of your colours must be pushed through without delay. I commend your choice, my boy. I’m sure you will find service under Lord Cardigan – ah – both stimulating and interesting. Yes, as I think of it, the combination of his lordship and yourself will be rewarding for you both.”

      I was too busy fawning on the old fool to pay much heed to what he was saying, otherwise I should have realised that anything that pleased him would probably be bad for me. He prided himself on being above my family, whom he considered boors, with some reason, and had never shown much but distaste for me personally. Helping me to my colours was different, of course; he owed that as a duty to a blood relation, but he paid it without enthusiasm. Still, I had to be civil as butter to him, and pretend respect.

      It paid me, for I got my colours in the 11th with surprising speed. I put it down entirely to influence, for I was not to know then that over the past few months there had been a steady departure of officers from the regiment, sold out, transferred, and posted – and all because of Lord Cardigan, whom my uncle had spoken of. If I had been a little older, and moved in the right circles, I should have heard all about him, but in the few weeks of waiting for my commission my father sent me up to Leicestershire, and the little time I had in town I spent either by myself or in the company of such of my relatives as could catch me. My mother had had sisters, and although they disliked me heartily they felt it was their duty to look after the poor motherless boy. So they said; in fact they suspected that if I were left to myself I would take to low company, and they were right.

      However, I was to find out about Lord Cardigan soon enough.

      In the last few days of buying my uniforms, assembling the huge paraphernalia that an officer needed in those days – far more than now – choosing a couple of horses, and arranging for my allowance, I still found time on my hands, and Mistress Judy in my thoughts. My tumble with her had only whetted my appetite for more of her, I discovered; I tried to get rid of it with a farm girl in Leicestershire and a young whore in Covent Garden, but the one stank and the other picked my pocket afterwards, and neither was any substitute anyway. I wanted Judy, at the same time as I felt spite for her, but she had avoided me since our quarrel and if we met in the house she simply ignored me.

      In the end it got too much, and the night before I left I went to her room again, having made sure the guv’nor was out. She was reading, and looking damned desirable in a pale green negligée; I was a little drunk, and the sight of her white shoulders and red mouth sent the old tingle down my spine again.

      “What do you want?” she said, very icy, but I was expecting that, and had my speech ready.

      “I’ve come to beg pardon,” I said, looking a bit hangdog. “Tomorrow I go away, and before I went I had to apologise for the way I spoke to you. I’m sorry, Judy; I truly am; I acted like a cad … and a ruffian, and, well … I want to make what amends I can. That’s all.”

      She put down her book and turned on her stool to face me, still looking mighty cold, but saying nothing. I shuffled like a sheepish schoolboy – I could see my reflection in the mirror behind her, and judge how the performance was going – and said again that I was sorry.

      “Very well, then,” she said at last. “You’re sorry. You have cause to be.”

      I kept quiet, not looking at her.

      “Well, then,” she said, after a pause. “Good night.”

      “Please, Judy,” I said, looking distraught. “You make it very hard. If I behaved like a boor –”

      “You did.”

      “– it was because I was angry and hurt and didn’t understand why … why you wouldn’t let me …” I let it trail off and then burst out that I had never known a woman like her before, and that I had fallen in love with her, and only came to ask her pardon because I couldn’t bear the thought of her detesting me, and a good deal more in the same strain – simple enough rubbish, you may think, but I was still learning. At that, the mirror told me I was doing well. I finished by drawing myself up straight, and looking solemn, and saying:

      “And that is why I had to see you again … to tell you. And to ask your pardon.”

      I gave her a little bow, and turned to the door, rehearsing how I would stop and look back if she didn’t stop me. But she took me at face value, for as I put my hand to the latch she said:

      “Harry.” I turned round, and she was smiling a СКАЧАТЬ