Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 3: Flashman at the Charge, Flashman in the Great Game, Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. George Fraser MacDonald
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for a season; as a soldier, I say, welcome, brother.” He shook my hand in what was probably only the top joints of his enormous fingers, and crushed it till it cracked. “Aye – you look like a soldier, sir. I am told you fought in the disgraceful affair at Balaclava, where our cavalry were chased like the rabble they are. I salute you, and every good sabre who rode with you. Chased like rabbits, those tutsb and moujiks on horseback. Aye, you would not have chased my Kubans so – or Vigenstein’s Hussars24 when I had command of them – no, by the Great God!” He glowered down at me, rumbling, as though he would break into “Fee-fi-fo-fum” at any moment, and then released my hand and waved towards the two women seated at the table.
“My daughter Valla, my sister-in-law, Madam Sara.” I bowed, and they inclined their heads and looked at me with that bold, appraising stare which Russian women use – they’re not bashful or missish, those ladies. Valentina, or Valla, as her father called her, smiled and tossed her silver-blonde head – she was a plumply pert little piece, sure enough, but I spared a glance for Aunt Sara as well. She’d be a few years older than I, about thirty-five, perhaps, with dark, close-bound hair and one of those strong, masterful, chiselled faces – handsome, but not beautiful. She’d have a moustache in a few years, but she was well-built and tall, carrying her bounties before her.
For all that Pencherjevsky looked like Goliath, he had good taste – or whoever ordered his table and domestic arrangements had. The big dining-room, like all the apartments in the house, had a beautiful wood-tiled floor, there was a chandelier, and any amount of brocade and flowered silk about the furnishings. (Pencherjevsky himself, by the way, was dressed in silk: most Russian gentlemen wear formal clothes as we do, more or less, but he affected a magnificent shimmering green tunic, clasped at the waist by a silver-buckled belt, and silk trousers of the same colour tucked into soft leather boots – a most striking costume, and comfortable too, I should imagine.)
The food was good, to my relief – a fine soup being followed by fried fish, a ragout of beef, and side-dishes of poultry and game of every variety, with little sweet cakes and excellent coffee. The wine was indifferent, but drinkable. Between the vittles, the four fine bosoms displayed across the table, and Pencherjevsky’s conversation, it was a most enjoyable meal.
He questioned me about Balaclava, most minutely, and when I had satisfied his curiosity, astonished me by rapidly sketching how the Russian cavalry should have been handled, with the aid of cutlery, which he clashed about on the table to demonstrate. He knew his business, no doubt of it, but he was full of admiration for our behaviour, and Scarlett’s particularly.
“Great God, there is an English Cossack!” says he. “Uphill, eh? I like him! I like him! Let him be captured, dear Lord, and sent to Starotorsk, so that I can keep him forever, and talk, and fight old battles, and shout at each other like good companions!”
“And get drunk nightly, and be carried to bed!” says Miss Valla, pertly – they enter into talk with the men, you know, these Russian ladies, with a freedom that would horrify our own polite society. And they drink, too – I noticed that both of them went glass for glass with us, without becoming more than a trifle merry.
“That, too, golubashka,” says Pencherjevsky. “Can he drink, then, this Scarlett? Of course, of course he must! All good horse-soldiers can, eh, colonel? Not like your Sasha, though,” says he to Valla, with a great wink at me. “Can you imagine, colonel, I have a son-in-law who cannot drink? He fell down at his wedding, on this very floor – yes, over there, by God! – after what? A glass or two of vodka! Saint Nicholas! Aye, me – how I must have offended the Father God, to have a son-in-law who cannot drink, and does not get me grandchildren.”
At this Valla gave a most unladylike snort, and tossed her head, and Aunt Sara, who said very little as a rule, I discovered, set down her glass and observed tartly that Sasha could hardly get children while he was away fighting in the Crimea.
“Fighting?” cries Pencherjevsky, boisterously. “Fighting – in the horse artillery? Whoever saw one of them coming home on a stretcher? I would have had him in the Bug Lancers, or even the Moscow Dragoons, but – body of St Sofia! – he doesn’t ride well! A fine son-in-law for a Zaporozhiyan hetman,c that!”
“Well, dear father!” snaps Valla. “If he had ridden well, and been in the lancers or the dragoons, it is odds the English cavalry would have cut him into little pieces – since you were not there to direct operations!”
“Small loss that would have been,” grumbles he, and then leaned over, laughing, and rumpled her blonde hair. “There, little one, he is your man – such as he is. God send him safe home.”
I tell you all this to give you some notion of a Russian country gentleman at home, with his family – although I’ll own that a Cossack may not be typical. No doubt he wasn’t to East’s delicate stomach – and I gather he didn’t care for East too much, either – but I found myself liking Pencherjevsky. He was gross, loud, boisterous – boorish, if you like, but he was worth ten of your proper gentlemen, to me at any rate. I got roaring drunk with him, that evening, after the ladies had retired – they were fairly tipsy, themselves, and arguing at the tops of their voices about dresses as they withdrew to their drawing-room – and he sang Russian hunting songs in that glorious organ voice, and laughed himself sick trying to learn the words of “The British Grenadiers”. I flatter myself he took to me enormously – folk often do, of course, particularly the coarser spirits – for he swore I was a credit to my regiment and my country, and God should send the Tsar a few like me.
“Then we should sweep you English bastards into the sea!” he roared. “A few of your Scarletts and Flashmans and Carragans – that is the name, no? – that is all we need!”
But drunk as he was, when he finally rose from the table he was careful to turn in the direction of the church, and cross himself devoutly, before stumbling to guide me up the stairs.
I was to see a different side to Pencherjevsky – and to all of them for that matter – in the winter that followed, but for the first few weeks of my sojourn at Starotorsk I thoroughly enjoyed myself, and felt absolutely at home. It was so much better than I had expected, the Count was so amiable in his bear-like, thundering way, his ladies were civil (for I’d decided to go warily before attempting a more intimate acquaintance with Valla) and easy with me, and East and I were allowed such freedom, that it was like a month of week-ends at an English country-house, without any of the stuffiness. You could come and go as you pleased, treat the place as your own, attend at meal-times or feed in your chamber, whichever suited – it was Liberty Hall, no error. I divided my days between working really hard at my Russian, going for walks or rides with Valla and Sara or East, prosing with the Count in the evenings, playing cards with the family – they have a form of whist called “biritsch” which has caught on in England this last few years, and we played that most evenings – and generally taking life easy. My interest in Russian they found especially flattering, for they are immensely proud and sensitive about their country, and I made even better progress than usual. I soon spoke and understood it better than East – “He has a Cossack somewhere in his family!” Pencherjevsky would bawl. “Let him add a beard to those foolish English whiskers and he can ride with the Kubans – eh, colonel?”
All mighty pleasant – until you discovered that the civility and good nature were no deeper than a May frost, the thin covering on totally alien beings. For all their apparent civilization, and even good taste, the barbarian was just under the surface, and liable to come raging out. It was easy to forget this, until some word or incident reminded you – that this pleasant house and estate were like a medieval castle, under feudal law; that this jovial, hospitable giant, who talked so knowledgeably of cavalry tactics and the hunting field, and played chess like a master, was also as dangerous and cruel as a cannibal chief; that his ladies, chattering cheerfully about French dressmaking or flower arrangement, were in some respects rather less feminine than Dahomey Amazons.
One such incident I’ll never forget. There was an evening when the four of us were in the salon, Pencherjevsky and I playing chess – he had handicapped himself by starting without queen or castle, to make a game of it