Flashman's Lady Read online

  “Why, that’s ancient history,” cries he. “Boys will be boys, what? Besides, d’ye know—I feel almost that I owe you an apology. Yes,” and he scratched his head and looked sheepish. “Tell the truth,” went on this amazing oaf, “when we were youngsters I didn’t care for you above half, Flashman. Well, you treated us fags pretty raw, you know—of course, I guess it was just thoughtlessness, but, well, we thought you no end of a cad, and—and…a coward, too.” He stirred uncomfortably, and I wondered was he going to fart. “Well, you caught us out there, didn’t you?” says he, meeting my eye again. “I mean, all this business in Afghanistan…the way you defended the old flag…that sort of thing. By George,” and he absolutely had tears in his eyes, “it was the most splendid thing…and to think that you…well, I never heard of anything so heroic in my life, and I just wanted to apologise, old fellow, for thinking ill of you—’cos I’ll own that I did, once—and ask to shake your hand, if you’ll let me.”

  He sat there, with his great paw stuck out, looking misty and noble, virtue just oozing out of him, while I marvelled. The strange thing is, his precious pal Scud East, whom I’d hammered just as generously at school, said almost the same thing to me years later, when we met as prisoners in Russia—confessed how he’d loathed me, but how my heroic conduct had wiped away all old scores, and so forth. I wonder still if they believed that it did, or if they were being hypocrites for form’s sake, or if they truly felt guilty for once having harboured evil thoughts of me? D----d if I know; the Victorian conscience is beyond me, thank G-d. I know that if anyone who’d done me a bad turn later turned out to be the Archangel Gabriel, I’d still hate the b-----d; but then, I’m a scoundrel, you see, with no proper feelings. However, I was so relieved to find that this stalwart lout was prepared to let bygones be bygones that I turned on all my Flashy charms, pumped his fin heartily, and insisted that he break his rule for once, and have a glass with me.

  “Well, I will, thank’ee,” says he, and when the beer had come and we’d drunk to dear old Rugby (sincerely, no doubt, on his part) he puts down his mug and says:

  “There’s another thing—matter of fact it was the first thought that popped into my head when I saw you just now—I don’t know how you’d feel about it, though—I mean, perhaps your wounds ain’t better yet?”

  He hesitated. “Fire away,” says I, thinking perhaps he wanted to introduce me to his sister.

  “Well, you won’t have heard, but my last half at school, when I was captain, we had no end of a match against the Marylebone men—lost on first innings, but only nine runs in it, and we’d have beat ’em, given one more over. Anyway, old Aislabie—you remember him?—was so taken with our play that he has asked me if I’d like to get up a side, Rugby past and present, for a match against Kent. Well, I’ve got some useful hands—you know young Brooke, and Raggles—and I remembered you were famous bowler, so…What d’ye say to turning out for us—if you’re fit, of course?”

  It took me clean aback, and my tongue being what it is, I found myself saying: “Why, d’you think you’ll draw a bigger gate with the hero of Afghanistan playing?”

  “Eh? Good lord, no!” He coloured and then laughed. “What a cynic you are, Flashy! D’ye know,” says he, looking knowing, “I’m beginning to understand you, I think. Even at school, you always said the smart, cutting things that got under people’s skins—almost as though you were going out of your way to have ’em think ill of you. It’s a contrary thing—all at odds with the truth, isn’t it? Oh, aye,” says he, smiling owlishly, “Afghanistan proved that, all right. The German doctors are doing a lot of work on it—the perversity of human nature, excellence bent on destroying itself, the heroic soul fearing its own fall from grace, and trying to anticipate it. Interesting.” He shook his fat head solemnly. “I’m thinking of reading philosophy at Oxford this term, you know. However, I mustn’t prose. What about it, old fellow?” And d--n his impudence, he slapped me on the knee. “Will you bowl your expresses for us—at Lord’s?”

  I’d been about to tell him to take his offer along with his rotten foreign sermonising and drop ’em both in the Serpentine, but that last word stopped me. Lord’s—I’d never played there, but what cricketer who ever breathed wouldn’t jump at the chance? You may think it small enough beer compared with the games I’d been playing lately, but I’ll confess it made my heart leap. I was still young and impressionable then and I almost knocked his hand off, accepting. He gave me another of his thunderous shoulder-claps (they pawed each other something d--nable, those hearty young champions of my youth) and said, capital, it was settled then.

  “You’ll 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 foregoing 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 generous, for in addition to being a stunning beauty she was also as brainless as a feather mop, and doted on me—or at least, she seemed to, but I was beginning to have my doubts. She had a hearty appetite for the two-backed game, and the suspicion was growing on me that in my absence she’d been rolling the linen with any chap who’d come handy, and was still spreading her favours now that I was home. As I say, I couldn’t be sure—for that matter, I’m still not, sixty years later. The trouble was and is, I dearly loved her in my way, and not only lustfully—although she was all you could wish as a nightcap—and however much I might stallion about the town and elsewhere, there was never another woman that I cared for besides her. Not even Lola Montez, or Lakshmibai, or Lily Langtry, or Ko Dali’s daughter, or Duchess Irma, or Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, or Valentina, or…or, oh, take your choice, there wasn’t one to come up to Elspeth.

  For one thing, she was the happiest creature in the world, and pitifully easy to please; she revelled in the London life, which was a rare change from the cemetery she’d been brought up in—Paisley, they call it—and with her looks, my new-won laurels, and (best of all) her father’s shekels, we were well received everywhere, her “trade” origins being conveniently forgotten. (There’s no such thing as an unfashionable hero or an unsuitable heiress.) This was just nuts to Elspeth, for she was an unconscionable little snob, and when I told her I was to play at Lord’s, before the smartest of the sporting set, she went into raptures—here was a fresh excuse for new hats and dresses, and preening herself before the society rabble, she thought. Being Scotch, and knowing nothing, she supposed cricket was a gentleman’s game, you see; sure enough, a certain level of the polite world followed it, but they weren’t precisely the high cream, in those days—country barons, racing knights, well-to-do gentry, maybe a mad bishop or two, but pretty rustic. It wasn’t quite as respectable as it is now.

  One reason for this was that it was still a betting game, and the stakes could run pretty high—I’ve known £50,000 riding on a single innings, with wild side-bets of anything from a guinea to a thou on how many wickets Marsden would take, or how many catches would fall to the slips, or whether Pilch would reach fifty (which he probably would). With so much cash about, you may believe that some of the underhand work that went on would have made a Hays City stud school look like old maid’s loo—matches were sold and thrown, players were bribed and threatened, wickets were doctored (I’ve known the whole eleven of a respected county side to sneak out en masse and p--s on the wicket in the dark, so that their twisters could get a grip next morning; I caught a nasty cold myself). Of course, corruption wasn’t general, or even common, but it happened in those good old sporting days—and whatever the purists may say, there was a life and stingo about cricket then that you don’t get now.

  It looked so different, even; if I close my eyes I can see Lord’s as it was then, and I know that when the memories of bed and battle have lost their colours and faded to misty grey, that at least will be as bright as ever. The coaches and carriages packed in the road outside the gate, the fashionable crowd streaming in by Jimmy Dark’s house under the trees, the girls like so many gaudy butterflies in their summer dresses and hats, shaded by parasols, and the men guiding ’em to chairs, some in tall hats and coats, others in striped weskits and caps, the gentry uncomfortably buttoned up and the roughs and townies in shirt-sleeves and billycocks with their watch-chains and cutties; the bookies with their stands outside the pavilion, calling the odds, the flash chaps in their mighty whiskers and ornamented vests, the touts and runners and swell mobsmen slipping through the press like ferrets, the pot-boys from the Lord’s pub thrusting along with trays loaded with beer and lemonade, crying “Way, order, gents! Way, order!”; old John Gully, the retired pug, standing like a great oak tree, feet planted wide, smiling his gentle smile as he talked to Alfred Mynn, whose scarlet waist-scarf and straw boater were a magnet for the eyes of the hero-worship
ping youngsters, jostling at a respectful distance from these giants of the sporting world; the grooms pushing a way for some doddering old Duke, passing through nodding and tipping his tile, with his poule-of-the-moment arm-in-arm, she painted and bold-eyed and defiant as the ladies turned the other way with a rustle of skirts; the bowling green and archery range going full swing, with the thunk of the shafts mingling with the distant pomping of the artillery band, the chatter and yelling of the vendors, the grind of coach-wheels and the warm hum of summer ebbing across the great green field where Stevie Slatter’s boys were herding away the sheep and warning off the bob-a-game players; the crowds ten-deep at the nets to see Pilch at batting practice, or Felix, agile as his animal namesake, bowling those slow lobs that seemed to hang forever in the air.

  Or I see it in the late evening sun, the players in their white top hats trooping in from the field, with the ripple of applause running round the ropes, and the urchins streaming across to worship, while the old buffers outside the pavilion clap and cry “Played, well played!” and raise their tankards, and the Captain tosses the ball to some round-eyed small boy who’ll guard it as a relic for life, and the scorer climbs stiffly down from his eyrie and the shadows lengthen across the idyllic scene, the very picture of merry, sporting old England, with the umpires bundling up the stumps, the birds calling in the tall trees, the gentle even-fall stealing over the ground and the pavilion, and the empty benches, and the willow wood-pile behind the sheep pen where Flashy is plunging away on top of the landlord’s daughter in the long grass. Aye, cricket was cricket then.

  Barring the last bit, which took place on another joyous occasion, that’s absolutely what it was like on the afternoon when the Gentlemen of Rugby, including your humble servant, went out to play the cracks of Kent (twenty to one on, and no takers). At first I thought it was going to be a frost, for while most of my team-mates were pretty civil—as you’d expect, to the Hector of Afghanistan—the egregious Brown was decidedly cool, and so was Brooke, who’d been head of the school in my time and was the apple of Arnold’s eye—that tells you all you need to know about him; he was clean-limbed and handsome and went to church and had no impure thoughts and was kind to animals and old ladies and was a midshipman in the Navy; what happened to him I’ve no idea, but I hope he absconded with the ship’s funds and the admiral’s wife and set up a knocking-shop in Valparaiso. He and Brown talked in low voices in the pavilion, and glanced towards me; rejoicing, no doubt, over the sinner who hadn’t repented.