Free Black Ajax by George MacDonald Fraser Page B

exclusive Guardees could cross the threshold – and mere Captain Flashman, late of the 23rd Lights, had a voucher. It was beyond belief.
    Plainly Beaufort, God bless him, had hit on the finest (and least noticeable) way of rewarding me for my services, and had said a kind word to Lady Jersey, and she (as I learned later) had had me pointed out in the Park, and been pleased with the view. She was a remarkable creature, “Queen Sarah”, undisputed leader of the Diamond Squad though she was still in her twenties, devilish handsome and mistress of forty thousand pounds a year, but renowned as the most affected, talkative, and downright uncivil woman in England. Her word was law at Almack's, and while I dare say my looks and bearing had something to do with my being sent that heavenly, precious voucher, I don't doubt she'd also done it to spite some other hopeful.
    I made my debut with Kangaroo doing the honours, leading me across that glittering floor to the charmed half-circle where Sarah sat, plumed and ridiculously regal, with her court of grand dames, many of 'em unexpectedly young and pretty, and bursting with blue blood. It was like being presented to the Empress of Russia. She stirred her fan and looked me up and down, icy cool.
    “I am told that they call you Mad Buck, Mr Flashman,” drawls she. “I wonder why?”
    “I am told that they call your ladyship Sweet Sally, marm,” says I. “But I don't wonder at all.” And before she could wither me for this effrontery, I gave her my gallant grin. “There, marm – now you know why they call me Mad Buck.”
    It could have cost me my voucher then and there, and for a moment she was at a loss how to take it – and then, d'ye know, she absolutely blushed with pleasure and laughed like a schoolgirl. Fact was, for all her airs she had no notion of proper behaviour, and was so used to being toadied that a saucy compliment from a devil-may-care soldiertook her unawares. I believe she decided that I was a “character”, and might be indulged, so while others were given their formal name or title, I was “Buck” to her thereafter, and she, the toploftiest tabby of them all, was well pleased to be “Lady Sal”, but to me alone. I offered her no other familiarity, I may say; she wasn't that sort.
    So that was how I arrived “on the Town”, and came to mingle with the upper crust, was welcomed from Almack's and Boodle's to Bob's Chophouse and Fishmonger's Hall, * received the nods from White's window and had my own stool and tankard in Cribb's Crib, and while never aspiring to be a Tulip, much less a Swell (for I dressed plain and expensive, a la Brummell, to impress Sweet Sally and the drawing-room mamas), was known as a regular out-and-outer, a Corinthian of the sporting sort, a flower of the Fancy who would fib with peer or pug … and best of all, I danced with 'Lishy Paget under the chandeliers, all those old country dances that she loved, Gathering Peasecods and Scotch reels, which were all the crack then, before the waltz came in …'Lishy of the flashing eyes and chestnut hair, dancing in a dream through those few golden years until she was taken from me, so young and lovely still, and full of life … and what did Society or Almack's or any of it matter then … ?
    Damn your eyes, if I choose to grow maudlin in my cups it's not your place to sigh like a flatulent sow. Your own fault for pressing booze on me … come along, man, fill up. No doubt you feel you've been the soul of patience, listening to my social triumphs – and if you still think I've been telling rappers you may go to Almack's and look at their books, blast your impudence. It's in King Street, but I believe they call it Wilkins' or some such name nowadays; gone to the dogs, I dare say, like everything else.
    Now, since I've educated you in the ways of that world of my long-lost youth, as a needful eye-opener, I'll tell you what you wish to know of Black Tom Molineaux, and how he brought the