Flashman’s Lady. George Fraser MacDonald

whom I count among my wisest friends—’ and he inclined his head to old Morrison, who was assuring Mrs Lade that he didn’t want any blancmange, but he’d like anither helpin’ o’ yon cornflour puddin’ ‘—I was about to say, since I must go – why do the three of you not come with me?’ And he smiled shyly at us in turn.

      I stared at the fellow to see if he was joking; Elspeth, all blonde bewilderment, looked at me and then at Solomon, open-mouthed.

      ‘Come with you?’

      ‘It’s only to the other side of the world, after all,’ says he, whimsically. ‘No, no – I am quite serious; it is not as bad as that. You know me well enough to understand that I wouldn’t propose anything that you would not find delightful. We should cruise, in my steam-brig – it’s as well-appointed as any royal yacht, you know, and we’d have the most splendid holiday. We would touch wherever we liked – Lisbon, Cadiz, the Cape, Bombay, Madras – exactly as the fancy took us. Oh, it would be quite capital!’ He leaned towards Elspeth, smiling. ‘Think of the places we’d see! The delight it would give me, Diana, to show you the wonder of Africa, as one sees it at dawn from the quarterdeck – such colours as you cannot imagine! The shores of the Indian Ocean – yes, the coral strand! Ah, believe me, until you have anchored off Singapore, or cruised the tropical coasts of Sumatra and Java and Borneo, and seen that glorious China Sea, where it is always morning – oh, my dear, you have seen nothing!’

      Nonsense, of course; the Orient stinks. Always did. But Elspeth was gazing at him in rapture, and then she turned eagerly to me. ‘Oh, Harry – could we?’

      ‘Out o’ the question,’ says I. ‘It’s the back of beyond.’

      ‘In these days?’ cries Solomon. ‘Why, with steam you may be in Singapore in – oh, three months at most. Say, three months as my guests while we visit my estates – and you would learn, Diana, what it means to be a queen in the Orient, I assure you – and three months to return. You’d be home again by next Easter.’

      ‘Oh, Harry!’ Elspeth was positively squeaking with joy. ‘Oh, Harry – may we? Oh, please, Harry!’ The chaps at the table were nodding admiringly, and the ladies murmuring enviously; the old Duke was heard to say that it was an adventure, d----d if it wasn’t, and if he was a younger man, by George, wouldn’t he jump at the chance?

      Well, they weren’t getting me East again; once had been enough. Besides, I wasn’t going anywhere on the charity of some rich dago show-off who’d taken a shine to my wife. And there was another reason, which enabled me to put a good face on my refusal.

      ‘Can’t be done, m’dear,’ says I. ‘Sorry, but I’m a soldier with a living to make. Duty and the Life Guards call, what? I’m desolate to deny you what I’m sure would be the jolliest trip’ – I felt a pang, I’ll admit, at seeing that lovely child face fall – ‘but I can’t go, you see. I’m afraid, Don, we’ll have to decline your kind offer.’

      He shrugged good-humouredly. ‘That’s settled, then. A pity, but—’ he smiled consolingly at Elspeth, who was looking down-in-the-mouth ‘—perhaps another year. Unless, in Harry’s enforced absence, your father could be persuaded to accompany us?’

      It was said so natural it took my breath away, but as it sank home I had to bite back an angry refusal. You b-----d, thinks I, that’s the game, is it? Wait till old Flashy’s put himself out of the running, and then innocently propose a scheme to get my wife far away where you can cock a leg over her at leisure. It was plain as a pikestaff; all my dormant suspicions of this smooth tub of nigger suet came back with a rush, but I kept mum while Elspeth looked down the table towards me – and, bless her, it was a doubtful look.

      ‘But … but it would be no fun without Harry,’ says she, and if ever I loved the girl it was then. ‘I … I don’t know – what does Papa say?’

      Papa, who appeared to be still tunnelling away at his pudding, had missed nothing, you may be sure, but he kept quiet while Solomon explained the proposal. ‘You remember, sir, we spoke of the possibility that you might accompany me to the East, to see for yourself the opportunities of business expansion,’ he was adding, but Morrison cut him short in his charming way.

      ‘You spoke of it, no’ me,’ says he, busily engulfing blancmange. ‘I’ve mair than enough o’ affairs here, withoot gallivantin’ tae China at my time o’ life.’ He waved his spoon. ‘Forbye, husband an’ wife should be thegither – it was bad enough when Harry yonder had tae be away in India, an’ my wee lassie near heartbroken.’ He made a noise which the company took for a sentimental sniff; myself I think it was another spoonful being prised loose. ‘Na, na – I’ll need a guid reason afore I’ll stir forth o’ England.’

      And he got it – to this day I can’t be certain that it was contrived by Solomon, but I’ll wager it was. For next morning the old hound was taken ill again – I don’t know if surfeit of blancmange can cause nervous collapse, but by afternoon he was groaning in bed, shuddering as with a fever, and Solomon insisted on summoning his own medico from Town, a dundreary-looking cove with a handle to his name and a line in unctuous gravity that must have been worth five thousand a year in Mayfair. He looked down solemnly at the sufferer, who was huddled under the clothes like a rat in its burrow, two beady eyes in a wrinkled face, and his nose quivering in apprehension.

      ‘Overstrained,’ says the sawbones, when he had completed his examination and caught the tune of Morrion’s whimpering. ‘The system is simply tired; that is all. Of organic deterioration there is no sign whatever; internally, my dear sir, you are sound as I am – as I hope I am, ha-ha!’ He beamed like a bishop. ‘But the machine, while not in need of repair, requires a rest – a long rest.’

      ‘Is it serious, docter?’ quavers Morrison. Internally, as the quack said, he might be in A1 trim, but his exterior suggested James I dying.

      ‘Certainly not – unless you make it so,’ says the poultice-walloper. He shook his head in censorious admiration. ‘You captains of commerce – you sacrifice yourselves without thought for personal health, as you labour for family and country and mankind. But, my dear sir, it won’t do, you know. You forget that there is a limit – and you have reached it.’

      ‘Could ye no’ gi’ me a line for a boatle?’ croaks the captain of commerce, and when this had been translated the medico shook his head.

      ‘I can prescribe,’ says he, ‘but no medicine could be as efficacious as – oh, a few months in the Italian lakes, or on the French coast. Warmth, sunshine, rest – complete rest in congenial company – that is my “line” for you, sir. I won’t be answerable for the consequences if you don’t take it.’

      Well, there it was. In two seconds I had foreseen what was to follow – Solomon’s recollection that he had only yesterday proposed just such a holiday, the quack’s booming agreement that a sea voyage in comfort was the ideal thing, Morrison’s reluctance being eventually overborne by Elspeth’s entreaties and the pill-slinger’s stern admonition – you could have set it all to music and sung the d----d thing. Then they all looked at me, and I said no.

      There followed painful private scenes between Elspeth and me. I said if old Morrison wanted to sail away with Don Solomon, he was more than welcome. She replied that it was unthinkable for dear Papa to go without her to look after him; it was absolutely her duty to accept Don Solomon’s generous offer and accompany the old goat. If I insisted on staying at home in the Army, of course she would be desolate without me – but why, oh why, could I not come anyway? – what did the Army matter, we had money enough, and so forth. I said no again, and added that it was a piece of impudence of Solomon’s even to suggest that she should go without me, at which she burst into tears and said I was odiously jealous, not only of her, but of Don Solomon’s breeding and address and money, just because I hadn’t any myself, and I was spitefully denying her a little pleasure, and there could be no possible impropriety with dear Papa to chaperon her, and I was trying to shovel the old sod into an early grave, or words to that effect.

      I left her wailing, and when