at me. ‘Well, there’s a German wench down there whose poonts are even bigger. Just about your weight; do you a power of good.’
He made gargling noises while I watched him with huge enjoyment.
‘So much for the new Flashman, eh?’ says I. ‘Wish you hadn’t invited me to play with your pure-minded little friends? Well, it’s too late, young Tom; you’ve shaken hands on it, haven’t you?’
He pulled himself together and took a breath. ‘You may play if you wish,’ says he. ‘More fool I for asking you – but if you were the man I had hoped you were, you would—’
‘Cry off gracefully – and save you from the pollution of my company? No, no, my boy – I’ll be there, and just as fit as you are. But I’ll wager I enjoy my training more.’
‘Flashman,’ cries he, as I turned away, ‘don’t go to – to that place, I beseech you. It ain’t worthy—’
‘How would you know?’ says I. ‘See you at Lord’s.’ And I left him full of Christian anguish at the sight of the hardened sinner going down to the Pit. The best of it was, he was probably as full of holy torment at the thought of my foul fornications as he would have been if he’d galloped that German tart himself; that’s unselfishness for you. But she’d have been wasted on him, anyway.
However, just because I’d punctured holy Tom’s daydreams, don’t imagine that I took my training lightly. Even while the German wench was recovering her breath afterwards and ringing for refreshments, I was limbering up on the rug, trying out my old round-arm swing; I even got some of her sisters in to throw oranges to me for catching practice, and you never saw anything jollier than those painted dollymops scampering about in their corsets, shying fruit. We made such a row that the other customers put their heads out, and it turned into an impromptu innings on the landing, whores versus patrons (I must set down the rules for brothel cricket some day, if I can recall them; cover point took on a meaning that you won’t find in ‘Wisden’, I know). The whole thing got out of hand, of course, with furniture smashed and the sluts shrieking and weeping, and the madame’s bullies put me out for upsetting her disorderly house, which seemed a trifle hard.
Next day, though, I got down to it in earnest, with a ball in the garden. To my delight none of my old skill seemed to have deserted me, the thigh which I’d broken in Afghanistan never even twinged, and I crowned my practice by smashing the morning-room window while my father-in-law was finishing his breakfast; he’d been reading about the Rebecca Riots3 over his porridge, it seemed, and since he’d spent his miserable life squeezing and sweating his millworkers, and had a fearful guilty conscience according, his first reaction to the shattering glass was that the starving mob had risen at last and were coming to give him his just deserts.
‘Ye d----d Goth!’ he spluttered, fishing the fragments out of his whiskers. ‘Ye don’t care who ye maim or murder; I micht ha’e been killed! Have ye nae work tae go tae?’ And he whined on about ill-conditioned loafers who squandered their time and his money in selfish pleasure, while I nuzzled Elspeth good morning over her coffee service, marvelling as I regarded her golden-haired radiance and peach-soft skin that I had wasted strength on that suety frau the evening before, when this had been waiting between the covers at home.
‘A fine family ye married intae,’ says her charming sire. ‘The son stramashin’ aboot destroyin’ property while the feyther’s lyin’ abovestairs stupefied wi’ drink. Is there nae mair toast?’
‘Well, it’s our property and our drink,’ says I, helping myself to kidneys. ‘Our toast, too, if it comes to that.’
‘Aye, is’t, though, my buckie?’ says he, looking more like a spiteful goblin than ever. ‘And who peys for’t? No’ you an’ yer wastrel parent. Aye, an’ ye can keep yer sullen sniffs to yersel’, my lassie,’ he went on to Elspeth. ‘We’ll hae things aboveboard, plump an’ plain. It’s John Morrison foots the bills, wi’ good Scots siller, hard-earned, for this fine husband o’ yours an’ the upkeep o’ his hoose an’ family; jist mind that.’ He crumpled up his paper, which was sodden with spilled coffee. ‘Tach! There my breakfast sp’iled for me. “Our property” an’ “our drink”, ye say? Grand airs and patched breeks!’ And out he strode, to return in a moment, snarling. ‘And since you’re meant tae be managin’ this establishment, my girl, ye’ll see tae it that we hae marmalade after this, and no’ this d----d French jam! Con-fee – toor! Huh! Sticky rubbish!’ And he slammed the door behind him.
‘Oh, dear,’ sighs Elspeth. ‘Papa is in his black mood. What a shame you broke the window, dearest.’
‘Papa is a confounded blot,’ says I, wolfing kidneys. ‘But now that we’re rid of him, give us a kiss.’
You’ll understand that we were an unusual menage. I had married Elspeth perforce, two years before when I had the ill-fortune to be stationed in Scotland, and had been detected tupping her in the bushes – it had been the altar or pistols for two with her fire-eating uncle. Then, when my drunken guv’nor had gone smash over railway shares, old Morrison had found himself saddled with the upkeep of the Flashman establishment, which he’d had to assume for his daughter’s sake.
A pretty state, you’ll allow, for the little miser wouldn’t give me or the guv’nor a penny direct, but doled it out to Elspeth, on whom I had to rely for spending money. Not that she wasn’t generous, for in addition to being a stunning beauty she was also as brainless as a feather mop, and doted on me – or at least, she seemed to, but I was beginning to have my doubts. She had a hearty appetite for the two-backed game, and the suspicion was growing on me that in my absence she’d been rolling the linen with any chap who’d come handy, and was still spreading her favours now that I was home. As I say, I couldn’t be sure – for that matter, I’m still not, sixty years later. The trouble was and is, I dearly loved her in my way, and not only lustfully – although she was all you could wish as a night-cap – and however much I might stallion about the town and elsewhere, there was never another woman that I cared for besides her. Not even Lola Montez, or Lakshmibai, or Lily Langtry, or Ko Dali’s daughter, or Duchess Irma, or Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, or Valentina, or … or, oh, take your choice, there wasn’t one to come up to Elspeth.
For one thing, she was the happiest creature in the world, and pitifully easy to please; she revelled in the London life, which was a rare change from the cemetery she’d been brought up in – Paisley, they call it – and with her looks, my new-won laurels, and (best of all) her father’s shekels, we were well-received everywhere, her ‘trade’ origins being conveniently forgotten. (There’s no such thing as an unfashionable hero or an unsuitable heiress.) This was just nuts to Elspeth, for she was an unconscionable little snob, and when I told her I was to play at Lord’s, before the smartest of the sporting set, she went into raptures – here was a fresh excuse for new hats and dresses, and preening herself before the society rabble, she thought. Being Scotch, and knowing nothing, she supposed cricket was a gentleman’s game, you see; sure enough, a certain level of the polite world followed it, but they weren’t precisely the high cream, in those days – country barons, racing knights, well-to-do gentry, maybe a mad bishop or two, but pretty rustic. It wasn’t quite as respectable as it is now.
One reason for this was that it was still a betting game, and the stakes could run pretty high – I’ve known £50,000 riding on a single innings, with wild side-bets of anything from a guinea to a thou. on how many wickets Marsden would take, or how many catches would fall to the slips, or whether Pilch would reach fifty (which he probably would). With so much cash about, you may believe that some of the underhand work that went on would have made a Hays City stud school look like old maid’s loo – matches were sold and thrown, players were bribed and threatened, wickets were doctored (I’ve known the whole eleven of a respected county side to sneak out en masse and p--s on the wicket in the dark, so that their twisters could get a grip next morning; I caught a nasty cold myself). Of course, corruption wasn’t general, or even common, but it happened in those good old sporting days – and whatever the purists may say, there was a life and stingo about cricket then that you don’t get now.
It