"Harry," says she quietly, and held out her hand, the empty palm towards me. "Take my hand, love … yours on the back of mine, so … and now we lay them down … and then we take them away …"
So help me God, there was the little round lid of the mustard pot on the cloth which had been bare. I gaped, struggling for speech.
"My God … where on earth did you learn that?"
"Oh, ever so long ago—from that friend of yours in the 11th Hussars, what was his name? Brand? O’Brien? It’s the simplest sleight of hand, really—"
"Bryant! That damned toad!"
"Please, Harry, do not thunder! He was the cleverest conjurer, you remember—"
"He was a low, conniving blackguard! D’you know he once laid a plant on me, made me out a cheat and swindler in front of Bentinck and D’Israeli and half the bloody country …" A dreadful suspicion struck me: had the loathsome Bryant been another of her fancy-men? "When the blue blazes did you know him?"
"Oh, how can I remember? ’Twas years and years since, about the Crimea time, I think, when we were acquainted with Lord Cardigan, and O’Brien or Brand was one of his officers, and showed me ever so many diverting tricks—surely you mind how I used to amuse Havvy and wee Selina with them? No, well, you must have been from home … At all events," says she reasonably, "if O’Bryant once embarrassed you with his jiggery-pokery … would that be the time Papa sent you away to Africa? My, he was a dour man when he wanted to be … well, you can see it was not hard for me to do the like by Billy Cumming, was it?"
There is a tide in the affairs of men when you simply have to chuck it—as, for example, when you learn that the wife of your unsuspecting bosom is a practised thimblerigger who has used her flash arts to ruin an innocent man. For it must all be true: she could never have invented anything so wild—and it fitted the facts and solved the mystery. And while no normal being would even have thought of such a thing, or had the audacity to attempt it, Elspeth has always been that alarming mixture of an idiot and a bearcat for nerve. Being a poltroon myself, I blurted out the first thing that came into my head.
"But, dear God—suppose you’d been caught?"
"Fiddlesticks! Have I not just shown you? And who," she looked droll, "would ever suspect dear old Lady Flashman? Once, perhaps, I was a wee bit gallus, when he was playing with his pencil, and I took his hand as though to write something between us … and pushed a counter over the line. And the silly gommerils all swore in court that he had done it! Why, I was as safe as Coutts' !"
D’you know, looking at that angelic smile, and contemplating what she’d done, I was almost scared of her, for the first time in fifty years. My Elspeth, whose kindly, feckless good nature I’d taken for granted, had confessed with shameless satisfaction to a crime that would have shocked Delilah. If she’d burned Cumming at the stake she couldn’t have done worse by him … and suddenly I found myself thinking of Sonsee-Array and Narreeman and the Dragon Empress and the Amazons and Ranavalona (I’ve known some fragile little blossoms in my time) and their genius for finding a man’s tenderest spot and twisting till he squeals … and realising that my gentle helpmeet was their sister under her cream and roses skin. Well, ex Elspetho semper aliquid novi, thinks I, who’d have believed it, and thank God she’s on my side. But what, in the name of all that was wonderful, could Cumming have done to drive her to such a monstrous revenge?
"I don’t care to' say!" was her astonishing reply when I demanded to be told (not for the first time, you’ll note). Her smile had vanished. "It was too … too outré for words!"
Her vocabulary being what it is, that might mean anything from farting to high treason. I felt an icy clutch at my innards, of rage against Cumming for whatever atrocious offence he might have given her, and of fear that I might be expected to do something dangerous about it, like offering to shoot the swine. But I couldn’t leave it there. Having told her appalling tale with happy abandon, she was now plainly uneasy at my question, frowning and looking askance. "Please do not ask me," says she.
I knew roaring and pounding the table wouldn’t serve, so I waited, pushed back my chair, and patted my knee. "Here, old lady," says I, and after a moment she came round and seated herself on my creaking thigh. "Now then, you’re bound to tell me, you know, and I shan’t be a bit angry either, honest Injun. You can kick twenty Cummings into the gutter, and I’ll lose no sleep, ’cos I know my girl wouldn’t do such a … such a thing without good cause. But I must know why you paid him out—and why you didn’t tell me all about it that night at Tranby." I gave her a squeeze and a kiss and my quizziest Flashy smile. "We’ve never had any secrets from each other, have we?" I’ll fry in Hell, no doubt about it.
"I couldn’t tell you then," says she, nestling against my shoulder. "I feared you would be angry, and might … might tell people … no, no, you would not do that, but you might have done something, I don’t know what, to … to interfere, and spoil it, and prevent him meeting his just deserts, the dirty beast!" Only Elspeth can talk like that with a straight face; comes of Paisley and reading novels. Her mouth was drooping, and there were absolute tears in her eyes. "You see, I knew what I had done was dreadful and … and dishonourable—and you are the very soul of honour!" She said it, God help me. "The chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, that’s what the Queen called you, I heard her—"
"Bless me, did she?"
"—and if I had told you at Tranby, why, you would have been in such a fix, on the horns of Tantalus, whether to speak out, which I knew you wouldn’t ever do, for my sake, or else be an … an accomplice in my dishonourable deed! And that would not have done!" She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. "So I had to be silent, and deceive you, and I’m so sorry for that, dearest, I truly am—but not for what I did to Billy Cumming, and if you blame me, I can’t 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.