Flashman in the Great Game. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ and Elspeth distinguished herself by actually prevailing on Albert to eat a cucumber sandwich; she’ll have him in the bushes in a minute, thinks I, and on that happy note our first visit concluded, with Elspeth going home on a cloud to Abergeldie.

      But if it was socially useful, it wasn’t much of a holiday, although Elspeth revelled in it. She went for walks with the Queen, twice (calling themselves Mrs Fitzjames and Mrs Marmion, if you please), and even made Albert laugh when charades were played in the evening, by impersonating Helen of Troy with a Scotch accent. I couldn’t even get a grin out of him; we went shooting with the other gentlemen, and it was purgatory having to stalk at his pace. He was keen as mustard, though, and slaughtered stags like a Ghazi on hashish – you’ll hardly credit it, but his notion of sport was that a huge long trench should be dug so that we could sneak up on the deer unobserved; he’d have done it, too, but the local ghillies showed so much disgust at the idea that he dropped it. He couldn’t understand their objections, though; to him all that mattered was killing the beasts.

      For the rest, he prosed interminably and played German music on the piano, with me applauding like hell. Things weren’t made easier by the fact that he and Victoria weren’t getting on too well just then; she had just discovered (and confided to Elspeth) that she was in foal for the ninth time, and she took her temper out on dear Albert – the trouble was, he was so bloody patient with her, which can drive a woman to fury faster than anything I know. And he was always right, which was worse. So they weren’t dealing at all well, and he spent most of the daylight hours tramping up Glen Bollocks, or whatever they call it, roaring ‘Ze gunn!’ and butchering every animal in view.

      The only thing that seemed to cheer up the Queen was that she was marrying off her oldest daughter, Princess Vicky – the best of the whole family, in my view, a really pretty, green-eyed little mischief. She was to wed Frederick William of Prussia, who was due at Balmoral in a few weeks, and the Queen was full of it, Elspeth told me.

      However, enough of the court gossip; it will give you some notion of the trivial way in which I was being forced to pass my time – toadying Albert, and telling the Queen how many acute accents there were on ‘déterminés’. The trouble with this kind of thing is that it dulls your wits, and your proper instinct for self-preservation, so that if a blow falls you’re caught clean offside, as I was on the night of September 22, 1856: I recollect the date absolutely because it was the day after Florence Nightingale came to the castle.³

      I’d never met her, but as the leading Crimean on the premises I was summoned to join in the tête-à-tête she had with the Queen in the afternoon. It was a frost, if you like; pious platitudes from the two of ’em, with Flashy passing the muffins and joining in when called on to agree that what our wars needed was more sanitation and texts on the wall of every dressing-station. There was one near-facer for me, and that was when Miss Nightingale (a cool piece, that) asked me calm as you like what regimental officers could do to prevent their men from contracting certain indelicate social infections from – hem-hem – female camp-followers of a certain sort; I near as dammit put my teacup in the Queen’s lap, but recovered to say that I’d never heard of any such thing, not in the Light Cavalry, anyway – French troops another matter, of course. Would you believe it, I actually made her blush, but I doubt if the Queen even knew what we were talking about. For the rest, I thought La Nightingale a waste of good womanhood; handsome face, well set up and titted out, but with that cold don’t-lay-a-lecherous-limb-on-me-my-lad look in her eye – the kind, in short, that can be all right if you’re prepared to spend time and trouble making ’em cry ‘Roger!’, but I seldom have the patience. Anywhere else I might have taken a squeeze at her, just by way of research, but a queen’s drawing-room cramps your style. (Perhaps it’s a pity I didn’t; being locked up for indecent assault on a national heroine couldn’t have been worse than the ordeal that was to begin a few hours later.)

      Elspeth and I spent the following evening at a birthday party at one of the big houses in the neighbourhood; it was a cheery affair, and we didn’t leave till close on midnight to drive back to Abergeldie. It was a close, thundery night, with big rain-drops starting to fall, but we didn’t mind; I had taken enough drink on board to be monstrously horny, and if the drive had been longer and Elspeth’s crinoline less of a hindrance I’d have had at her on the carriage-seat. She got out at the lodge giggling and squeaking, and I chased her through the front door – and there was the messenger of doom, waiting in the hall. A tall chap, almost a swell, but with a jaw too long and an eye too sharp; very respectable, with a hard hat under his arm and a billy in his hip-pocket, I’ll wager. I know a genteel strong man from a government office when I see one.

      He asked could he speak to me, so I took my arm from Elspeth’s waist, patted her towards the stairs with a whispered promise that I’d be up directly to sound the charge, and told him to state his business. He did that smart enough.

      ‘I am from the Treasury, Colonel Flashman,’ says he. ‘My name is Hutton. Lord Palmerston wishes to speak with you.’

      It took me flat aback, slightly foxed that I was. My first thought was that he must want me to go back to London, but then he said: ‘His lordship is at Balmoral, sir. If you will be good enough to come with me – I have a coach.’

      ‘But, but … you said Lord Palmerston? The Prime … what the deuce? Palmerston wants me?’

      ‘At once, sir, if you please. The matter is urgent.’

      Well, I couldn’t make anything of it. I never doubted it was genuine – as I’ve said, the man in front of me had authority written all over him. But it’s a fair start when you come rolling innocently home and are told that the first statesman of Europe is round the corner and wants you at the double – and now the fellow was positively ushering me towards the door.

      ‘Hold on,’ says I. ‘Give me a moment to change my shoes’ – what I wanted was a moment to put my head in the wash-bowl and think, and despite his insistence I snapped at him to wait, and hurried upstairs.

      What the devil was Pam doing here – and what could he want with me? I’d only met him once, for a moment, before I went to the Crimea; I’d leered at him ingratiatingly at parties, too, but never spoken. And now he wanted me urgently – me, a mere colonel on half pay. I’d nothing on my conscience, either – leastways, not to interest him. I couldn’t see it, but there was nothing but to obey, so I went to my dressing-room, fretting, donned my hat and topcoat against the worsening weather, and remembered that Elspeth, poor child, must even now be waiting for her cross-buttocking lesson. Well, it was hard lines on her, but duty called, so I just popped my head round her door to call a chaste farewell – and there she was, dammit, reclining languorously on the coverlet like one of those randy classical goddesses, wearing nothing but the big ostrich-plume fan I’d brought her from Egypt, and her sniggering maid turning the lamp down low. Elspeth clothed could stop a monk in his tracks; naked and pouting expectantly over a handful of red feathers, she’d have made the Grand Inquisitor burn his books. I hesitated between love and duty for a full second, and then ‘The hell with Palmerston, let him wait!’ cries I, and was plunging for the bed before the abigail was fairly out of the room. Never miss the chance, as the Duke used to say.

      ‘Lord Palmerston? Oooo-ah! Harry – what do you mean?’

      ‘Ne’er mind!’ cries I, taking hold and bouncing away.

      ‘But Harry – such impatience, my love! And, dearest – you’re wearing your hat!’

      ‘The next one’s going to be a boy, dammit!’ And for a few glorious stolen moments I forgot Palmerston and minions in the hall, and marvelled at the way that superb idiot woman of mine could keep up a stream of questions while performing like a harem houri – we were locked in an astonishing embrace on her dressing-table stool, I recall, when there was a knock on the door, СКАЧАТЬ