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

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СКАЧАТЬ when Iqbal died? Of the nightmare of Piper’s Fort or that dreadful dwarf in the snake-pit? About Sekundar Burnes? Or Bernier? Or the women – Josette, Narreeman, Fetnab and the rest? About Elspeth? About the Queen?

None of these things. Strange, but as the coach won clear and we rattled off down the Mall with the cheers dying behind us, I could hear Arnold’s voice saying, “There is good in you, Flashman,” and I could imagine how he would have supposed himself vindicated at this moment, and preach on “Courage” in chapel, and pretend to rejoice in the redeemed prodigal – but all the time he would know in his hypocrite heart that I was a rotter still.³⁰ But neither he nor anyone else would have dared to say so. This myth called bravery, which is half-panic, half-lunacy (in my case, all panic), pays for all; in England you can’t be a hero and bad. There’s practically a law against it.

      Wellington was muttering sharply about the growing insolence of the mob, but he left off to tell me he would set me down at the Horse Guards. When we arrived and I was getting out and thanking him for his kindness, he looks sharply at me, and says:

      “I wish you every good fortune, Flashman. You should go far. I don’t imagine you’re a second Marlborough, mind, but you appear to be brave and you’re certainly damned lucky. With the first quality you may easily gain command of an army or two, and lead ’em both to ruin, but with your luck you’ll probably lead ’em back again. You have made a good beginning, at all events, and received today the highest honour you can hope for, which is your monarch’s mark of favour. Goodbye to you.”

      We shook hands, and he drove off. I never spoke to him again. Years later, though, I told the American general, Robert Lee, of the incident, and he said Wellington was right – I had received the highest honour any soldier could hope for. But it wasn’t the medal; for Lee’s money it was Wellington’s hand.

      Neither, I may point out, had any intrinsic value.

      I was the object of general admiration at the Horse Guards, of course, and at the club, and finally I took myself home in excellent fettle. It had been raining cats and dogs, but had stopped, and the sun was shining as I ran up the steps. Oswald informed me that Elspeth was above stairs; oho! thinks I, wait till she hears where I’ve been and who I’ve seen. She’ll be rather more attentive to her lord and master now, perhaps, and less to sprigs of Guardees; I was smiling as I went upstairs, for the events of the afternoon had made my earlier jealousy seem silly, and simply the work of the little bitch Judy.

      I walked into the bedroom keeping my left hand over the medal, to surprise her. She was sitting before her glass, as usual, with her maid dressing her hair.

      “Harry!” she cries out, “where have you been? Have you forgot we are to take tea with Lady Chalmers at four-thirty?”

      “The devil with Lady Chalmers, and all Chalmerses,” says L “Let ’em wait.”

      “Oh, how can you say so?” she laughed at me in the mirror. “But where have you been, looking so splendid?”

      “Oh, visiting friends, you know. Young couple, Bert and Vicky. You wouldn’t know ’em.”

      “Bert and Vicky!” If Elspeth had developed a fault in my long absence, it was that she had become a complete snob – not uncommon among people of her class. “Whoever are they?”

      I stood behind her, looking at her reflection, and exposed the medal. I saw her eyes light on it, and widen, and then she swung round.

      “Harry! What … ?”

      “I’ve been to the palace. With the Duke of Wellington. I had this from the Queen – after we had chatted a little, you know, about poetry and …”

      “The Queen!” she squeals. “The Duke! The palace!”

      And she leaped up, clapping her hands, throwing her arms round my neck, while her maid clucked and fussed and I, laughing, swung her round and kissed her. There was no shutting her up, of course; she rained questions on me, her eyes shining, demanding to know who was there, and what they said, and what the Queen wore, and how the Queen spoke to me, and what I replied, and every mortal thing. Finally I pushed her into a chair, sent the maid packing, and sat down on the bed, reciting the whole thing from start to finish.

      Elspeth sat, round-eyed and lovely, listening breathlessly, and squealing with excitement every now and then. When I told her the Queen had asked about her she gasped and turned to look at herself in the mirror, I imagine to see if there was a smut on her nose. Then she demanded that I go through it all again, and I did, but not before I had stripped off her gown and pulled her on top of me on the bed, so that between gasps and sighs the breathtaking tale was re-told. I lost track of it several times, I admit.

      Even then she was still marvelling at it all, until I pointed out that it was after four o’clock, and what would Lady Chalmers say? She giggled, and said we had better go, and chattered incessantly while she dressed and I lazily put myself in order.

      “Oh, it is the most wonderful thing!” she kept saying. “The Queen! The Duke! Oh, Harry!”

      “Aye,” says I, “and where were you, eh? Sparking in the Row all afternoon with one of your admirers.”

      “Oh, he is the greatest bore,” says she laughing. “Nothing to talk of but his horses. We spent the entire afternoon riding in the Park, and he spoke of nothing else for two hours on end!”

      “Did he, begad,” says I. “Why, you must have been soaked.”

      She was in a cupboard by now, among her dresses, and didn’t hear, and idly I reached out, not thinking, and touched the bottle-green riding coat that lay across the end of the bed. I felt it, and my heart suddenly turned to stone. The coat was bone-dry. I twisted round to look at the boots standing by a chair; they shone glossy, with not a mark or a splash on them.

      I sat, feeling sick, listening to my heart thumping, while she chattered away. It had rained steadily from the time I had left Wellington at the Horse Guards until I had left the club more than an hour later and come home. She could not have been riding in the Park in that downpour. Well, where the devil had she and Watney been, then, and what …?

      I felt rage mounting inside me, rage and spite, but I held myself in, telling myself I might be wrong. She was patting her face with a rabbit’s foot before the glass, never minding me, so I said, very easy like:

      “Whereabouts did you go for your ride?”

      “Oh, in the Park, as I said. Nowhere at all in particular.”

      Now that’s a lie for certain, thinks I, and yet I couldn’t believe it. She looked so damned innocent and open, so feather-headed and full of nonsense as she went on and on about my wonderful, wonderful hour at the palace; why, only ten minutes ago she had been coupling with me on the bed, letting me … aye, letting me. Suddenly the ugly thought of the first night home came rushing back to me – how I had fancied she was less ardent than I remembered her. Perhaps I had been right; perhaps she had been less passionate. Well she might be, if in my absence she had found some jockey who was more to her fancy over the jumps than I was. By God, if that were true I would …

      I sat there shaking, my head turned away so that she would not see me in the mirror. Had that slut Judy been hinting at the truth, then? Was Watney cuckolding me – and heaven knew who else besides him? I was fairly boiling with shame and anger at the thought. But it couldn’t be true! No, not Elspeth. And yet there was Judy’s sneer, СКАЧАТЬ