help it! Oh, Harry, I have so wanted to confess it all to you, so many, many times, but I was bound to wait until the trial was over, you see, for then it would be too late!' She had her arms round my neck, eyes piteous in entreaty. 'Oh, Harry, my jo, can you forgive me? If you don’t, I think I’ll die … for I only did it for love of you and … and your honour!'
You understand now why I said that Elspeth must be allowed to babble to a conclusion if you’re to reach sense at last. Well, we were getting on.
'Dear lass,' says I, trying not to wince with my leg cracking under the strain, 'whatever does my honour have to do with it? And for heaven’s sake, what did Gordon Cumming do—to make you hate him so, and serve him such a ghastly turn?'
At last it came, in a whisper, her head bowed.
'He … he called you a coward.'
I dam' near let her fall on the floor. 'What was that?'
'A coward!' Her head came up, and suddenly she was fairly blazing with rage. 'He said it to my face! He did! Oh, I burn with shame to think of it, the vile falsehood! The evil, wicked story-teller! He said you had run away from the Seekhs or the Zulus or someone at that place in Africa, Isal-something-or-other—'
'Isan’lwana? God love us, who didn’t?' But she was too angry to hear me, raging on in full spate about how the brazen rascal had dared to say that I had fled headlong, and escaped in a cart while my comrades perished, and had skulked in the hospital at Rorke’s Drift (all true, except the bit about the hospital—a fat chance anyone had to skulk with the roof on fire and those fearsome black buggers coming through the wall), and she had been so distraught by his slanders that she had removed from his presence, nigh weeping, and if she had been a man she would have slain him on the spot.
'To hear him lying in his jealous teeth, the toad, defaming you, the bravest, gallantest, best soldier in all the world, as everyone knows, that have won the V.C. and done ever so many heroic deeds, the Hector of Afghanistan and the Bayard of Balaclava it said in the papers, and I cut them out every one, and keep them, and didn’t I see you fight like a lion against those disagreeable folk in Madagascar, and you brought me away safe and sound, and had followed to the ends of the earth all for my sake, and rescued me, that didn’t deserve it, and you the dearest, kindest valiant knight, so you are …' At which point she buried her face in my neck and howled for a spell, while I moved her fine poundage on to a convenient chair and massaged my numbed limb, marvel-ling at the mysterious workings of the female mind. She continued to cling to me, uttering muffled anathemas against Cumming, and at last came to the surface, moist and pink.
'I would not have told you if you had not pressed me,' gulps she, 'for it soils my lips to have to repeat his sinful lies. He tried to dishonour you, and I was resolved to dishonour him by hook or crook, if it took a lifetime, and if what I did was dishonourable, too, and underhand and sly, I don’t care a docken! He’s a cur, and that’s what he is, and now every dog on the midden kens what he is!'
It ain’t easy for a sonsy matron with blonde curls to look like the wrath of God, but she was managing uncommon well. She sniffed, defiant and soulful together.
'Now you know the kind of woman you married. And if you spurn me it will break my heart—but I would do it again, a thousand times!' I’ll swear she gritted her teeth. 'No one—no one!—speaks ill of my hero, and that’s the size of it!'
And that, dear reader, is why William Gordon-Cumming was cast into outer darkness: because he’d blown on Flashy’s honour. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? It had been his bad luck that where an ordinary wife would have treated his insults with icy disdain, or at most urged her husband to call on the cad with a horsewhip, my eccentric lady had nursed her vengeance for years before ruining him with a stratagem so dangerous (never mind its warped lunacy) that my blood still runs cold to think of it, twenty years on. Social ruin aside, the crazy bitch could have gone to gaol for criminal conspiracy—not that that would enter her empty head, or deter her if it had. The only qualm she’d felt was that if I learned the truth of the disgraceful way she’d engineered Cumming’s downfall, I might recoil from her in virtuous disgust—which only goes to show that after fifty years she knew no more of my true character than I, apparently, did of hers.
And she’d done it all for a mere word: coward (a true word, if she’d only known it). Aye … and for the love of Harry. Well, I ain’t the most sentimental chap, as you know, but as I thought about that, and considered her while she dried her tears … dammit, I was touched. Not many husbands are given such proof of loyalty, and fidelity, and devotion carried to the point of insanity—not that I’m saying she’s mad, mind, but … well, you’re bound to agree there’s something loose up yonder. Still, barmy or not, the little darling deserved every comfort I could give her, and I was about to embrace her with cries of reassurance … when a thought crossed my mind.
She was watching me with pink-nosed anxiety. 'Oh, Harry, can you forgive me? Oh, why do you look so stern? Do you despise me?'
'Eh? Oh, lord, no! What, despise you? Good God, girl, I’m proud of you!' And I hugged her, slightly preoccupied.
'Are you sure? Oh, my darling, when I see you frown … and I know that what I did was ignoble and … and unladylike, and not at all the thing, and how could you be proud of me—oh, I fear that you disdain me! Please, dear one, tell me it’s not so!' She put her hands either side of my face, imploring at point-blank, which ain’t helpful when you’re trying to think. I forced myself to sound sincere and hearty.
'Of course I don’t disdain you, you little goose! What, for snookering Gordon-Cumming so cleverly? I should say not! It was the smartest stunt since Tones Vedras, and—'
'Tones who?'
'—and nothing ignoble about it, so don’t fret your bonny head. He’s well served.' Damned right; nothing’s too bad for the man who tells truth about Flashy. But that was by the way …
'Oh, Harry!' She was all over me, arms round my neck, fairly squeaking with joy. 'Then you are not angry, and I’m truly for-given? Oh, you are the best, the kindest of husbands …' She kissed me for all she was worth. 'And all is truly well?'
'Absolutely! Couldn’t be better. So you mustn’t cry any more—make your pretty nose red if you do. Now, what about that tea you were going to ring for?'
She kissed me again and fled from the room, calling for Jane, but in fact to make repairs to her appearance —as I’d known she would when I mentioned her nose. I wanted a moment to reflect.
Cumming was down the drain: excellent. Elspeth was none the worse for her idiotic behaviour; indeed, she’d done me proud in her misguided way, championing my 'honour', as she conceived it: excellent again. She’s solved the Tranby mystery, too, albeit her explanation was as staggering as it was undoubtedly true. On only one little point had she been reticent, and it was exercising me rather.
The whole world knew I was one of the few who’d escaped the Isan’lwana massacre in ’79, but that was no disgrace since there were no living witnesses to my terrified flight, and if Cumming chose to make the worst out of it, much good it would do him, with my heroic reputation. But that was by the way, since I’d gathered that he’d confided his opinion to Elspeth alone: the point was, when precisely had he done so, and in what circumstances? I didn’t doubt he’d called me a coward, you understand, but it ain’t the kind of thing a fellow says by way of social chat over the tea-cups, is it? 'Ah, Lady Flashman, delightful weather, is it not? And did you enjoy The Gondoliers? Such jolly tunes! No, I fear the dear Bishop’s health is not what it was … by the by, did I never tell you, your husband’s a bloody poltroon who ran screaming from Isan’lwana? Oh, you hadn’t heard … ?' No, hardly.
In my experience, which is considerable, observations like 'coward' are usually made fortissimo at the climax of a first-rate turn-up between a lady and gentleman most intimately acquainted … a lover’s quarrel, perhaps? You’ll recall that Cumming was among those I’d suspected of dancing the honeymoon hornpipe with my dear one in days gone by; it had been no more than my normal suspicion of her, and had gone clean out of my head during the Tranby scandal, but now it was back with a vengeance. Yes …’twould be about ten years since she’d dropped Cumming’s acquaintance abruptly, and my lurid imagination could conjure up the scene in some silken nest of sin around South Audley Street, circa 1880, Cumming all moustachioed and masterful in his long combinations and my adulterous angel bursting proudly out of her corset as they slanged each other across the crumpled sheets of shame. God knows I’ve been there often enough myself, when passion has staled to moody discontent, sullen exchanges wax into recrimination, the errant wife makes odious comparisons to the lover’s disadvantage—and that’s the moment when Lothario, cut to the quick, speaks his mind of the cuckolded husband. 'Your precious Harry’s not so much of a man, I can tell you …' followed by a shriek of indignation and the crash of a hurled utensil … aye, that’s how it would have been, devil a doubt; try as I might, I couldn’t picture it any different: Cumming
