Royal Flash. George Fraser MacDonald
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the mischief increase – it wasn’t every day one could see Gully box in earnest, which he seemed ready to do. Tom appealed to Bismarck, but the German, smiling his superior smile, just says:
‘I am prepared to continue.’
After that, try as Tom might, he was over-ruled, and presently they were facing up to each other again. I was delighted, of course; this was more than I had hoped for, although I feared that Gully’s good nature would make him let Bismarck off lightly. His pride was hurt, but he was a fair-minded fool, and I guessed he would just rap the German once or twice, smartly, to show him who was master and let it go at that. Perceval was hoping so, at all events. ‘Go easy, Jack, for God’s sake,’ he cried, and then they set to.
I don’t know what Bismarck hoped for. He wasn’t a fool, and Gully had demonstrated already that the German was a child in his hands. I can only suppose that he thought he had a chance of throwing Gully again, and was too damned conceited to escape gratefully. At any rate, he went in swinging both arms, and Jack rapped him over the heart and then cracked him a neat left on the head when he was off balance, which knocked him down.
‘Time!’ cries Spottswood, but Bismarck didn’t understand, and bounding up he rushed at Gully, and with a lucky swing, caught him on the ear. Jack staggered, righted himself, and as if by instinct smacked two blows into Bismarck’s belly. He went down, gasping and wheezing, and Perceval ran forward, saying that this was the end, he would have no more of it.
But the German, when he had straightened up, got his breath back and wiped the trickle of blood from his nose, was determined to go on. Gully said no, and Bismarck sneered at him, and the upshot was that they squared away again, and Gully knocked him off his feet.
But still he got up, and now Gully was sickened, and refused to go on, and when he held out his hand Bismarck struck at him, at which Gully hammered him one in the face, which sent him headlong, and on the instant Gully was cursing himself for a bad-tempered fool, and calling for Spottswood to take off his gloves, and Tom was raising Bismarck off the floor, and a splendidly gory face he presented, too. And there was a tremendous hubbub, with drunk chaps crying ‘Shame!’ and ‘Stop the fight!’ and ‘Hit him again!’ and Perceval almost crying with mortification, and Gully stamping off in a corner, swearing he hadn’t meant to hurt the fellow, but what could he do? and Bismarck white-faced, being helped into one of the chairs, where they sponged his face and gave him brandy. There were apologies, and protestations, and Gully and Bismarck finally shook hands, and Jack said he was ashamed of himself, as an Englishman, and would Bismarck forgive him? Bismarck, with his mouth puffed and split where Jack’s last blow had caught him, and his fine aristocratic nose crusted with his own blood – I’d have given twenty guineas to see it properly smashed – said it was nothing, and he was obliged to Mr Gully for the instruction. He then added that he was capable of continuing, and that the fight had not been stopped at his request, at which old Jack took a big breath but said nothing, and the others cheered and Conyngham cried:
‘Good for the Prussian! A dam’ game bird he is! Hurrah!’
This was the signal for the drinking to start again, in earnest, while two of the company, flown with pugilistic ardour, put on the mauleys and began to spar away drunkenly, and losing their tempers, finished up savaging each other on the floor. Perceval stayed by Bismarck, muttering apologies while the German waved them away and sipped brandy through his battered mouth. Gully simply went over to the sideboard and poured drink into himself until he was completely foxed; no one had ever seen him so shaken and unhappy before, or known him drink more than the most modest amount. But I knew why he was doing it; he was ashamed. It is a terrible thing to have ideals and a conscience, to say nothing of professional pride. He told me later he would have been better to suffer being thrown; beating Bismarck had been the most shameful thing he ever did, he said.
I’d have been delighted to do it, personally, if I’d had his skill; I’d have left that German upstart without a tooth in his head. As it was, when the boozing was at its height, and the uproar was deafening, I chanced by where Bismarck was still sitting, sipping delicately at his glass. He turned and caught my eye, frowned, and said:
‘Still I cannot place you, Captain. It is most intriguing; but it will come back, no doubt. However, I trust you were not disappointed with your evening’s entertainment.’
‘It might have been better,’ says I, grinning at him.
‘Even so, you contrived very well. I have you to thank for these,’ and he touched his lips and reddened nose. ‘One day I shall hold you to your promise, and show you the schlager play. I look forward to that; we shall see how much credit you obtain from my country’s sport.’
‘More than you’ve got from mine, I hope,’ says I, laughing.
‘Let us hope so,’ says he. ‘But I doubt it.’
‘Go to the devil,’ says I.
He turned away, chuckling to himself. ‘After you, I think.’
One of the difficulties of writing your memoirs is that they don’t run smooth, like a novel or play, from one act to the next. I’ve described how I met Rosanna James and Otto, but beyond a paragraph in The Times announcing her divorce from Captain James towards the end of the year, I didn’t hear of her again for months. As for Bismarck, it was a few years before I ran into him again, and then it was too soon.
So in the first place I must skip over a few months to my second meeting with Rosanna, which was brought about because I have a long memory and a great zeal in paying off old scores. She had put herself on the debit side of Flashy’s ledger, and when the chance came to pay her out I seized on it.
It was the following summer, while I was still in London, officially waiting for Uncle Bindley at the Horse Guards to find me an appointment, and in fact just lounging about the town and leading the gay life. It wasn’t quite so gay as it had been, for while I was still something of an idol in military circles, my gloss was beginning to wear a bit thin with the public. Yesterday’s hero is soon forgotten, and while Elspeth and I had no lack of invitations during the season, it seemed to me that I wasn’t quite so warmly fêted as I had been. I wasn’t invariably the centre of attraction any longer; some chaps even seemed to get testy if I mentioned Afghanistan, and at one assembly I heard a fellow say that he personally knew every damned stone of Piper’s Fort by now, and could have conducted sightseers over the ruins.
That’s by the way, but it was one of the reasons that I began to find life boring me in the months that followed, and I was all the readier for mischief when the chance came.
I forget exactly what took me to one of the Haymarket theatres on an afternoon in May – there was an actress, or an acrobat she may have been, whom I was pushing about just then, so it may have been her. In any event, I was standing in the wings with some of the Gents and Mooners,15 during a rehearsal, when I noticed a female practising dance-steps on the other side of the stage. It was her shape that caught my eye, for she was in the tight fleshings that ballet-dancers wear, and I was admiring her legs when she turned in profile and to my astonishment I recognised Rosanna.
She was wearing her hair in a new way, parted in the centre, and held behind her head in a kerchief, but there was no mistaking the face or the figure.
‘Splendid piece, ain’t she?’ says one of the Mooners. ‘They say Lumley’ – he was the manager – ‘pays her a fortune. ’Pon my soul, I would myself, what?’
Oho, I thought to myself, what’s this? I asked the Mooner, offhand, who she might be.
‘Why, she’s his new danseuse, don’t you know,’ says he. ‘It seems that opera hasn’t been bringing in the tin lately, so Lumley imported her specially to dance between the acts. Thinks she’ll make a great hit, and with those legs I’ll be bound she will. See here.’ And he pushed a printed bill into my hand. It read:
HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE
Special Attraction
Mr Benjamin Lumley