The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  It was a night in early May, I think, that Elspeth was bidden to some great drum in Mayfair to celebrate the first absolute fighting of the war, which had been reported a week or so earlier – our ships had bombarded Odessa, and broken half the windows in the place, so of course the fashionable crowd had to rave and riot in honour of the great victory.8 I don’t remember seeing Elspeth lovelier than she was that night, in a gown of some shimmering white satin stuff, and no jewels at all, but only flowers coiled in her golden hair. I would have had at her before she even set out, but she was all a-fuss tucking little Havvy into his cot – as though the nurse couldn’t do it ten times better – and was fearful that I would disarrange her appearance. I fondled her, and promised I would put her through the drill when she came home, but she damped this by telling me that Marjorie had bidden her stay the night, although it was only a few streets away, because the dancing would go on until dawn, and she would be too fatigued to return.

  So off she fluttered, blowing me a kiss, and I snarled away to the Horse Guards, where I had to burn the midnight oil over sapper transports; Raglan had set out for Turkey leaving most of the work behind him, and those of us who were left were kept at it until three each morning. By the time we had finished, even Willy was too done up to fancy his usual nightly exercise with his Venus, so we sent out for some grub – it was harry and grass,c I remember, which didn’t improve my temper – and then he went home.

  I was tired and cranky, but I couldn’t think of sleep, somehow, so I went out and started to get drunk. I was full of apprehension about the coming campaign, and fed up with endless files and reports, and my head ached, and my shoes pinched, so I poured down the whistle-belly with brandy on top, and the inevitable result was that I finished up three parts tight in some cellar near Charing Cross. I thought of a whore, but didn’t want one – and then it struck me: I wanted Elspeth, and nothing else. By God, there was I, on the brink of another war, slaving my innards into knots, while she was tripping about in a Mayfair ball-room, laughing and darting chase-me glances at party-saunterers and young gallants, having a fine time for hours on end, and she hadn’t been able to spare me five minutes for a tumble! She was my wife, dammit, and it was too bad. I put away some more brandy while I considered the iniquity of this, and took a great drunken resolve – I would go round to Marjorie’s at once, surprise my charmer when she came to bed, and make her see what she had been missing all evening. Aye, that was it – and it was romantic, too, the departing warrior tupping up the girl he was going to leave behind, and she full of love and wistful longing and be-damned. (Drink’s a terrible thing.) Anyway, off I set west, with a full bottle in my pocket to see me through the walk, for it was after four, and there wasn’t even a cab to be had.

  By the time I got to Marjorie’s place – a huge mansion fronting the Park, with every light ablaze – I was taking the width of the pavement and singing “Villikins and his Dinah”.9 The flunkeys at the door didn’t mind me a jot, for the house must have been full of foxed chaps and bemused females, to judge by the racket they were making. I found what looked like a butler, inquired the direction of Mrs Flashman’s chamber, and tramped up endless staircases, bouncing off the walls as I went. I found a lady’s maid, too, who put me on the right road, banged on a door, fell inside, and found the place was empty.

  It was a lady’s bedroom, no error, but no lady, as yet. All the candles were burning, the bed was turned down, a fluffy little Paris night-rail which I recognized as one I’d bought my darling lay by the pillow, and her scent was in the air. I stood there sighing and lusting boozily; still dancing, hey? We’ll have a pretty little hornpipe together by and by, though – aha, I would surprise her. That was it; I’d hide, and bound out lovingly when she came up. There was a big closet in one wall, full of clothes and linen and what-not, so I toddled in, like the drunken, love-sick ass I was – you’d wonder at it, wouldn’t you, with all my experience? – settled down on something soft, took a last pull at my bottle – and fell fast asleep.

  How long I snoozed I don’t know; not long, I think, for I was still well fuddled when I came to. It was a slow business, in which I was conscious of a woman’s voice humming “Allan Water”, and then I believe I heard a little laugh. Ah, thinks I, Elspeth; time to get up, Flashy. And as I hauled myself ponderously to my feet, and stood swaying dizzily in the dark of the closet, I was hearing vague confused sounds from the room. A voice? Voices? Someone moving? A door closing? I can’t be sure at all, but just as I blundered tipsily to the closet door, I heard a sharp exclamation which might have been anything from a laugh to a cry of astonishment. I stumbled out of the closet, blinking against the sudden glare of light, and my boisterous view halloo died on my lips.

  It was a sight I’ll never forget. Elspeth was standing by the bed, naked except for her long frilled pantaloons; her flowers were still twined in her hair. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her knuckles were against her lips, like a nymph surprised by Pan, or centaurs, or a boozed-up husband emerging from-the wardrobe. I goggled at her lecherously for about half a second, and then realized that we were not alone.

  Half way between the foot of the bed and the door stood the 7th Earl of Cardigan. His elegant Cherrypicker pants were about his knees, and the front tail of his shirt was clutched up before him in both hands. He was in the act of advancing towards my wife, and from the expression on his face – which was that of a starving, apoplectic glutton faced with a crackling roast – and from other visible signs, his intention was not simply to compare birthmarks. He stopped dead at sight of me, his mottled face paling and his eyes popping, Elspeth squealed in earnest, and for several seconds we all stood stock still, staring.

  Cardigan recovered first, and looking back, I have to admire him. It was not an entirely new situation for me, you understand – I’d been in his shoes, so to speak, many a time, when husbands, traps, or bullies came thundering in unexpectedly. Reviewing Cardigan’s dilemma, I’d have whipped up my britches, feinted towards the window to draw the outraged spouse, doubled back with a spring on to the bed, and then been through the door in a twinkling. But not Lord Haw-Haw; his bearing was magnificent. He dropped his shirt, drew up his pants, threw back his head, looked straight at me, rasped: “Good night to you!”, turned about, and marched out, banging the door behind him.

  Elspeth had sunk to the bed, making little sobbing sounds; I still stood swaying in disbelief, trying to get the booze out of my brain, wondering if this was some drunken nightmare. But it wasn’t, and as I glared at that big-bosomed harlot on the bed, all those ugly suspicions of fourteen years came flooding back, only now they were certainties. And I had caught her in the act at last, all but in the grip of that lustful, evil old villain! I’d just been in the nick of time to thwart him, too, damn him. And whether it was the booze, or my own rotten nature, the emotion I felt was not rage so much as a vicious satisfaction that I had caught her out. Oh, the rage came later, and a black despair that sometimes wounds me like a knife even now, but God help me, I’m an actor, I suppose, and I’d never had a chance to play the outraged husband before.

  “Well?” It came out of me in a strangled yelp. “Well? What? What? Hey?”

  I must have looked terrific, I suppose, for she dropped her squeaking and shuddering like a shot, and hopped over t’other side of the bed like a jack rabbit.

  “Harry!” she squealed. “What are you doing here?”

  It must have been the booze. I had been on the point of striding – well, staggering – round the bed to seize her and thrash her black and blue, but at her question I stopped, God knows why.

  “I was waiting for you! Curse you, you adulteress!”

  “In that cupboard?”

  “Yes, blast it, in that cupboard. By God, you’ve gone too far, you vile little slut, you! I’ll –”

  “How could you!” So help me God, it’s what she said. “How could you be so inconsiderate and unfeeling as to pry on me in this way? Oh! I was never so mortified! Neve
r!”

  “Mortified?” cries I. “With that randy old rip sporting his beef in your bedroom, and you simpering naked at him? You – you shameless Jezebel! You lewd woman! Caught in the act, by George! I’ll teach you to cuckold me! Where’s a cane? I’ll beat the shame out of that wanton carcase, I’ll –”

  “It is not true!” she cried. “It is not true! Oh, how can you say such a thing!”

  I was glaring round for something to thrash her with, but at this I stopped, amazed.

  “Not true? Why, you infernal little liar, d’you think I can’t see? Another second and you’d have been two-backed-beasting all over the place! And you dare –”

  “It is not so!” She stamped her foot, her fists clenched. “You are quite in the wrong – I did not know he was there until an instant before you came out of that cupboard! He must have come in while I was disrobing – Oh!” And she shuddered. “I was taken quite unawares –”

  “By God, you were! By me! D’you think I’m a fool? You’ve been teasing that dirty old bull this month past, and I find him all but mounting you, and you expect me to believe –” My head was swimming with drink, and I lost the words. “You’ve dishonoured me, damn you! You’ve –”

  “Oh, Harry, it is not true! I vow it is not! He must have stolen in, without my hearing, and –”

  “You’re lying!” I shouted. “You were whoring with him!”

  “Oh, that is untrue! It is unjust! How can you think such a thing? How can you say it?” There were tears in her eyes, as well there might be, and now her mouth trembled and drooped, and she turned her head away. “I can see,” she sobbed, “that you merely wish to make this an excuse for a quarrel.”

  God knows what I said in reply to that; sounds of rupture, no doubt. I couldn’t believe my ears, and then she was going on, sobbing away:

  “You are wicked to say such a thing! Oh, you have no thought for my feelings! Oh, Harry, to have that evil old creature steal up on me – the shock of it – oh, I thought to have died of fear and shame! And then you – you!” And she burst into tears in earnest and flung herself down on the bed.

  I didn’t know what to say, or do. Her behaviour, the way she had faced me, the fury of her denial – it was all unreal. I couldn’t credit it, after what I’d seen. I was full of rage and hate and disbelief and misery, but in drink and bewilderment I couldn’t reason straight. I tried to remember what I’d heard in the closet – had it been a giggle or a muted shriek? Could she be telling the truth? Was it possible that Cardigan had sneaked in on her, torn down his breeches in an instant, and been sounding the charge when she turned and saw him? Or had she wheedled him in, whispering lewdly, and been stripping for action when I rolled out? All this, in a confused brandy-laden haze, passed through my mind – as you may be sure it has passed since, in sober moments.

  I was lost, standing there half-drunk. That queer mixture of shock and rage and exultation, and the vicious desire to punish her brutally, had suddenly passed. With any of my other women, I’d not even have listened, but taken out my spite on them with a whip – except on Ranavalona, who was bigger and stronger than I. But I didn’t care for the other women, you see. Brute and all that I am, I wanted to believe Elspeth.

  Mind you, it was still touch and go whether I suddenly went for her or not; but for the booze I probably would have done. There was all the suspicion of the past, and the evidence of my eyes tonight. I stood, panting and glaring, and suddenly she swung up in a sitting position, like Andersen’s mermaid, her eyes full of tears, and threw out her arms. “Oh, Harry! Comfort me!”

  If you had seen her – aye. It’s so easy, as none knows better than I, to sneer at the Pantaloons of this world, and the cheated wives, too, while the rakes and tarts make fools of them – “If only they knew, ho-ho!” Perhaps they do, or suspect, but would just rather not let on. I don’t know why, but suddenly I was seated on the bed, with my arm round those white shoulders, while she sobbed and clung to me, calling me her “jo” – it was that funny Scotch word, which she hadn’t used for years, since she had grown so grand, that made me believe her – almost.

  “Oh, that you should think ill of me!” she sniffled. “Oh, I could die of shame!”

  “Well,” says I, breathing brandy everywhere, “there he was, wasn’t he? By God! Well, I say!” I suddenly seized her by the shoulders at arms’ length. “Do you –? No, by God! I saw him – and you – and – and –”

  “Oh, you are cruel!” she cried. “Cruel, cruel!” And then her arms went round my neck, and she kissed me, and I was sure she was lying – almost sure.

  She sobbed away a good deal, and protested, and I babbled a great amount, no doubt, and she swore her honesty, and I didn’t know what to make of it. She might be true, but if she was a cheat and a liar and a whore, what then? Murder her? Thrash her? Divorce her? The first was lunatic, the second I couldn’t do, not now, and the third was unthinkable. With the trusts that old swine Morrison had left to tie things up, she controlled all the cash, and the thought of being a known cuckold living on my pay – well, I’m fool enough for a deal, but not for that. Her voice was murmuring in my ear, and all that naked softness was in my arms, and her fondling touch was reminding me of what I’d come here for in the first place, so what the devil, thinks I, first things first, and if you don’t pleasure her now till she faints, you’ll look back from your grey-haired evenings and wish you had. So I did.

  I still don’t know – and what’s more I don’t care. But one thing only I was certain of that night – whoever was innocent, it wasn’t James Brudenell, Earl of Cardigan. I swore then inwardly, with Elspeth moaning through her kiss, that I would get even with that one. The thought of that filthy old goat trying to board Elspeth – it brought me out in a sweat of fury and loathing. I’d kill him, somehow. I couldn’t call him out – he’d hide behind the law, and refuse. Even worse, he might accept. And apart from the fact that I daren’t face him, man to man, there would have been scandal for sure. But somehow, some day, I would find a way.

  We went to sleep at last, with Elspeth murmuring in my ear about what a mighty lover I was, recalling me in doting detail, and how I was at my finest after a quarrel. She was giggling drowsily about how we had made up our previous tiff, with me tumbling her in the broom closet at home, and what fun it had been, and how I’d said it was the most famous place for rogering, and then suddenly she asked, quite sharp:

  “Harry – tonight – your great rage at my misfortune was not all a pretence, was it? You did not – you are sure? – have some … some female in the cupboard?”

  And damn my eyes, she absolutely got out to look. I don’t suppose I’ve cried myself to sleep since I was an infant, but it was touch and go then.

  * * *

  a See Royal Flash.

  b Striped trousers.

  c Haricot mutton and asparagus.

  Chapter 3

  While all these important events in my personal affairs were taking place – Willy and Elspeth and Cardigan and so forth – you may wonder how the war was progressing. The truth is, of course, that it wasn’t, for it’s a singular fact of the Great Conflict against Russia that no one – certainly no one on the Allied side – had any clear notion of how to go about it. You will think that’s one of these smart remarks, but it’s not; I was as close to the conduct of the war in the summer of ’54 as anyone, and I can tell you truthfully that the official view of the whole thing was:

  “Well, here we are, the French and ourselves, at war with Russia, in order to protect Turkey. Ve-ry good. What shall we do, then? Better attack Russia, eh? H’m, yes. (Pause). Big place, ain’t it?”

  So they decided to concentrate our army, and the Froggies, in Bulgaria, where they might help the Turks fight the Ruskis on the Danube. But the Turks flayed the life out of the Russians without anyone’s help, and neither Raglan, who was now out in Varna in command of the allies, nor our chiefs at home, could think what we might usefully do next. I had secret hopes that the whol
e thing might be called off; Willy and I were still at home, for Raglan had sent word that for safety’s sake his highness should not come out until the fighting started – there was so much fever about in Bulgaria, it would not be healthy for him.

  But there was never any hope of a peace being patched up, not with the mood abroad in England that summer. They were savage – they had seen their army and navy sail away with drums beating and fifes tootling, and “Rule Britannia” playing, and the press promising swift and condign punishment for the Muscovite tyrant, and street-corner orators raving about how British steel would strike oppression down, and they were like a crowd come to a prize-fight where the two pugs don’t fight, but spar and weave and never come to grips. They wanted blood, gallons of it, and to read of grape-shot smashing great lanes through Russian ranks, and stern and noble Britons skewering Cossacks, and Russian towns in flames – and they would be able to shake their heads over the losses of our gallant fellows, sacrificed to stern duty, and wolf down their kidneys and muffins in their warm breakfast rooms, saying: “Dreadful work this, but by George, England never shirked yet, whatever the price. Pass the marmalade, Amelia; I’m proud to be a Briton this day, let me tell you.”10

  And all they got that summer, was – nothing. It drove them mad, and they raved at the Government, and the army, and each other, lusting for butchery, and suddenly there was a cry on every lip, a word that ran from tongue to tongue and was in every leading article – “Sevastopol!” God knows why, but suddenly that was the place. Why were we not attacking Sevastopol, to show the Russians what was what, eh? It struck me then, and still does, that attacking Sevastopol would be rather like an enemy of England investing Penzance, and then shouting towards London: “There, you insolent bastard, that’ll teach you!” But because it was said to be a great base, and The Times was full of it, an assault on Sevastopol became the talk of the hour.