Flash For Freedom!

Hussar rig, the first one hallo-ing and waving to Fanny and helping her down from her mare. She made him known to me, with a mischievous twinkle, as her fiance, one Duberly, which would have been bad news at any other time, but all my attention was taken by his companion, who stood back eyeing me with a cool smile, very knowing: my heart checked for a second at the sight of him. It was Bryant.

If you know my memoirs, you know him. He and I had been subalterns in Cardigan's regiment, nine years before; on the occasion when I fought a memorable duel, he had agreed, for a consideration, to ensure that my opponent's pistol was loaded only with blank, so that I had survived the meeting with credit. I had cheated him out of his payment, to be sure, and there had been nothing he could do except make empty threats of vengeance. After that our ways had parted, and I'd forgotten him; and now here he was, like corpse at a christening. Of course, he still couldn't harm me, but it was a nasty turn to see him, just the same.

'Hello, Flash,' says he, sauntering up. 'Still campaigning, I see.' And he made his bow to Miss Fanny, while Duberly presented him.

'Most honoured to know you, sir,' says this Duberly, shaking my hand as I dismounted. He was a fattish, whiskered creature, with muff written all over him. 'Heard so much — distinguished officer — delighted to see you here, eh, Fan?' And she, cool piece that she was, having sensed in an instant that Bryant and I were at odds, chattered gaily about what a jolly picnic we had made, while Duberly humphed and grinned and was all over her. Presently he led her indoors, leaving Bryant and me by the horses.

'Spoiled the chase for you has he, Flash?' says he, with his spiteful little grin. 'D—-lish nuisance, these fiances; sometimes as inconvenient as husbands, I dare say.'

'I can't imagine you'd know about that,' says I, looking him up and down. 'When did Cardigan kick you out, then?' For he wasn't wearing Cherrypicker rig. He flushed at that, and I could see I'd touched him on the raw.

'I transferred to the Eighth Irish,' says he. 'We don't all leave regiments as you do, with our tails between our legs.'

'My, my, it still rankles, Tommy, don't it?' says I, grinning at him. 'Feeling the pinch, were we? I always thought the Eleventh was too expensive for you; well, if you can't come up to snuff in the Eighth you can always take up pimping again, you know.'

That made his mouth work, all right; in the old days in Canterbury, when he was toadying me, I'd thrown a few guineas his way in return for his services as whoremonger and general creature. He fell back a step.

'D—n you, Flashman,' says he, 'I'll bring you down yet!'

'Not to your own level, if you please,' says I, and left him swearing under his breath.

Now, if I'd been as wise then as I am now, I'd have remembered that even as slimy a snake as Bryant still has fangs, but he was such a contemptible squirt, and I'd handled him so easily in the past, that I put him out of my mind. I was more concerned with the inconvenience of this fat fool Duberly, whose presence would make it all the more difficult for me to cock a leg athwart Miss Fanny — I was sure she was game for it, after that day's sparring, but of course Duberly quite cut me out now that he was here, squiring her at tea, and fetching her fan, clucking round her in the drawing-room, and taking her arm in to dinner. Locke and the rest of her family were all for him, I could see, so I couldn't put him down as I'd have done anywhere else. It was d––d vexing, but where's the fun if it's all too easy, I told myself, and set to scheme how I might bring the lady to the sticking point, as we Shakespeare scholars say.

I was much distracted from these fine thoughts by old Morrison, who berated me privately for what he called 'godless gallivanting after yon hussy'; it seemed I should have spent the day hanging on the lips of Bentinck and D'Israeli and Locke, who had been deep in affairs. I soothed him with a promise that I'd attend them after dinner, which I did, and steep work it was. Ireland was very much exciting them, I recall, and the sentencing and transportation of some rebel called Mitchel; old Morrison was positive he should have been hanged, and got into a great passion because when they shipped him off to the Indies they didn't send him in chains with a bread-and- water diet.⁹

'If the d—-d rascal had sailed on any vessel o' mine, it would hae been sawdust he got tae eat, and d––d little o' that,' says dear kind papa, and the rest of them cried 'hear, hear,' and agreed that it was this kind of soft treatment that encouraged sedition; they expected the Paddies to rise at any time, and there was talk of Dublin being besieged. All humbug, of course; you can't mount a rebellion on rotten potatoes.

After that there was fierce debate over whether the working class wanted reform, and one Hume was damned for a scoundrel, and D'Israeli discoursed on the folly of some measure to exclude M.P.s who couldn't pay their debts — no doubt he had a personal interest there — and I sat and listened, bored to death, until Bentinck suggested we join the ladies. Not that there was much sport there either, for Mrs Locke was reading aloud from the great new novel, Jane Eyre, and from the expression on the faces of Fanny and the other young misses, I guessed they'd have been happier with Varney the Vampire or Sweeney Todd.¹⁰ In another corner the older folk were looking at picture books — German churches, probably — another pack of females were sewing and mumbling to each other, and in an adjoining salon some hysterical bitch was singing 'Who will o'er the downs with me?' with a governess thrashing away at the pianoforte. A couple of wild old rakes were playing backgammon, and Duberly was explaining to whoever would listen that he would have been glad to serve in India, but his health wouldn't allow, don't ye know. I asked myself how long I could bear it.

I believe it was Bentinck who suggested cards — Locke looked like the kind who wouldn't have permitted such devices of the devil under his roof, but Bentinck was the lion, you see, and couldn't be gainsaid; besides, there was still a little leeway in those days which you'd never have got in the sixties or seventies. I wasn't in at the beginning of the game, having been ambushed by an old dragon in a lace cap who told me how her niece Priscilla had written to her with an envelope, instead of waxing her letter, and what did I think of that? I despaired of getting away, until who should appear but Fanny herself, sparkling and full of nonsense, to insist that I should come and show her how to make her wagers.

'I am quite at sea,' says she, 'and Henry' — this was Duberly — 'vows that counting makes his head ache.¹¹ You will assist me, Captain Flashman, won't you, and Aunt Selina will not mind, will you, auntie dear?'

I should have told her to go straight to h—l, and clung to Aunt Selina like a shipwrecked lascar — but you can't read the future. Ain't it odd to think, if I'd declined her invitation, I might have been in the Lords today — and a certain American might never have become President? Mind you, even now, if a fresh piece like Fanny Locke stooped in front of me, with those saucy eyes and silken hair, and pushed those pouting lips and white shoulders at me — ah, dry your whiskers, old Flash — you could keep your coronet for me, and I'd take her hand and hobble off to my ruin, whatever it was.

Aunt Selina sniffed, and told her she must not wager more than a pair of gloves — 'and not your Houbigants, mind, you foolish little girl. Indeed, I don't know what the world is coming to, or Henry Duberly thinking of, to permit you wagering at cards. No doubt he will be one of these husbands who will allow you to waltz, and drink porter in company. It would not have done in my day. What are the stakes?'

'Oh, ever so little, aunt,' says Fanny, tugging at my sleeve. 'Farthings and sweets — and Lord George has the bank, and is ever such fun!'

'Is he, indeed?' says Aunt Selina, gathering up her reticule. 'Then I shall come myself, to see you are not excessively silly.'

There was quite a crowd round the table in the salon, where Bentinck was presiding over vingt-et-un, amid great merriment. He was playing the chef to perfection, calling the stakes and whipping round the pasteboards like a riverboat dude. Even Locke and Morrison were present, watching and being not too sour about it; Mrs Abigail Locke was among the players, with Bryant advising, toady-like, at her elbow; D'Israeli was making a great show of playing indulgently, like a great man who don't mind stooping to trivialities if it will amuse lesser minds, and half a dozen others, old and young, were putting up their counters and laughing with delight at Bentinck's sallies.

As Fanny and Aunt Selina took their seats, an old fellow with white whiskers leans across to me. 'I must warn you,' says he, 'that Lord George has us playing very deep — plunging recklessly, you know.' He held up some counters. 'The green ones are — a farthing; the blue — a ha'penny; and the yellow — you must take care — are a penny! It is desperate work, you see!'

'I'm coming for you, Sir Michael!' cries Bentinck, slapping the pack. 'Now, ladies, are you ready? Then, one for all, and all for the lucky winner!' And he flicked the cards round to the players.

It was silly, harmless stuff, you see, all good nature and playfulness — and as desperate a card game as I