She pinned it on my coat, and she had to reach up to do it, she was so small. Then she smiled at me, and I felt so overcome I didn"t know what to say. Seeing this, she went all soulful about the eyes.
"You are a very gallant gentleman," says she. "G.o.d bless you."
Oh, lor", I thought, if only you knew, you romantic little woman, thinking I"m a modern Horatius. (I made a point of studying Macaulay"s "Lays" later, and she wasn"t too far off, really; only the chap I resembled was False s.e.xtus, a man after my own heart.)
However, I had to say something, so I mumbled about her majesty"s service.
"England"s service," said she, looking intense.
"The same thing, ma"am," says I, flown with inspiration, and she cast her eyes down wistfully. The Duke gave what sounded like a little groan.
There was a pause, and then she asked if I was married. I told her I was, but that I and my wife had been parted for the past two years.
"What a cruel separation", says she, as one might say "What delicious strawberry jam". But she was sure, she said, that our reunion must be all the sweeter for that parting.
"I know what it means to be a devoted wife, with the dearest of husbands," she went on, glancing at Albert, and he looked fond and n.o.ble. G.o.d, I thought, what a honey-moon that must have been.
Then the Duke chimed in, making his farewells, and I realised that this was my cue. We both bowed, and backed away, and she sat looking dumpy on the couch, and then we were in the corridor again, and the Duke was striding off through the hovering attendants.
"Well," says he, "you"ve got a medal no one else will ever have. Only a few of "em struck, you see, and then Ellenborough announced that he was giving four of his own, which did not please her majesty at all. So her medal is to be stopped.(29) He was right as it turned out; no one else ever received the medal, with its pink and green ribbon (I suspect Albert chose the colours), and I wear it on ceremonial days along with my Victoria Cross, my American Medal of Honour (for which the republic graciously pays me ten dollars a month), my San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth (richly deserved), and all the other a.s.sorted tinware which serves to disguise a cowardly scoundrel as a heroic veteran. We pa.s.sed through the covey of saluting Guardsmen, bowing officials, and rigid flunkeys to our coach, but there was no getting through the gates at first for the crowd which had collected and was cheering its head off.
"Good old Flashy! Hurrah for Flash Harry! Hip! hip! hooray!"
They clamoured at the railings, waving and throwing up their hats, jostling the sentries, surging in a great press round the gateway, until at last the gates were pushed open and the brougham moved slowly through the struggling ma.s.s, all the faces grinning and shouting and the handkerchiefs waving.
"Take off your hat, man," snaps the Duke, so I did, and they roared again, pressing forward against the sides of the coach, reaching in to clasp my hand, beating on the panels, and making a tremendous racket.
"He"s got a medal!" roars someone. "G.o.d save the Queen!"
At that they woke the echoes, and I thought the coach must overturn. I was laughing and waving to them, but what do you suppose I was thinking? This was real glory! Here was I, the hero of the Afghan war, with the Queen"s medal on my coat, the world"s greatest soldier at my side, and the people of the world"s greatest city cheering me to the echo - me! while the Duke sat poker-faced snapping: "Johnson, can"t you get us out of this d.a.m.ned mess?"
What was I thinking? About the chance that had sent me to India? About Elphy Bey? About the horror of the pa.s.ses on the retreat, or the escape at Mogala 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 d.a.m.ned 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 after-noon had made my earlier jealousy seem silly, and simply the work of the little b.i.t.c.h Judy.
I walked into the bedroom keeping my left hand over the medal, to surprise her. She was sitting before her gla.s.s, 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 I. "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 sn.o.b -not uncommon among people of her cla.s.s. "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 s.m.u.t 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 pat-ting her face with a rabbit"s foot before the gla.s.s, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sionate. 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 G.o.d, 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 s.l.u.t 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, and those boots winking their wickedness at me - they hadn"t been near the Park this afternoon, by G.o.d!
While the maid came back and attended to Elspeth"s hair again, and I tried to close my ears to the shrill feminine trilling of her talk, I tried to take hold of myself. Maybe I was wrong - oh, G.o.d, I hoped so. It wasn"t just that strange yearning that I had about Elspeth, it was my ... well, my honour, if you like. Oh, I didn"t give a d.a.m.n about what the world calls honour, but the thought of another man, or men, frollicking in the hay with my wife, who should have been unable to imagine a more masterful or heroic lover than the great Flashman - the hero whose name was on everyone"s lips, G.o.d help us - the thought of that! . . .
Pride is a h.e.l.lish thing; without it there isn"t any jealousy or ambition. And I was proud of the figure I cut - in bed and in barracks. And here was I, the lion of the hour, medal and all, the Duke"s handshake and the Queen"s regard still fresh - and I was gnawing my innards out about a gold-headed filly without a brain to her name. And I must bite my lip and not say a word, for fear of the row there would be if I let slip a breath of my suspicions - right or wrong, the fat would be in the fire, and I couldn"t afford that.
"Well, how do I look?" says she, coming to stand in front of me in her gown and bonnet. "Why, Harry, you have gone quite pale! I know, it is the excitement of this day! My poor dear!" And she tilted up my head and kissed me. No, I couldn"t believe it, looking into those baby-blue eyes. Aye, and what about those baby-black boots?
"We shall go out to Lady Chalmers"s," said she, "and she will be quite over the moon when she hears about this. I expect there will be quite a company there, too. I shall be so proud, Harry - so proud! Now, let me straighten your cravat; bring a brush, Susan - what an excellent coat it is. You must always go to that tailor - which is he again? There now; oh, Harry, how handsome you look! See yourself in the gla.s.s!"
I looked, and seeing myself so d.a.m.ned dashing, and her radiant and fair beside me, I fought down the wretchedness and rage. No, it couldn"t be true ...
"Susan, you have not put away my coat, silly girl. Take it at once, before it creases."