"The Flag of the Adventurer" by Sydney C. Grier. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.
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Sydney C. Grier. The Flag of the Adventurer
The Flag of the Adventurer
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I. MAJOR AND MRS AMBROSE
CHAPTER II. THE RIFT IN THE LUTE
CHAPTER III. COLONEL BAYARD’S BURDEN
CHAPTER IV. A LUCKLESS DAY
CHAPTER V. THE SEAL OF SOLOMON
CHAPTER VI. ENTER THE ADVENTURER
CHAPTER VII. THE OLD ORDER CHANGES
CHAPTER VIII. TOO CLEVER BY HALF
CHAPTER IX. DINNER AT THE GENERAL’S
CHAPTER X. A CONTEST OF WITS
CHAPTER XI. DEEDS, NOT WORDS
CHAPTER XII. AN ERROR OF JUDGMENT
CHAPTER XIII. A LAST EFFORT
CHAPTER XIV. OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN—
CHAPTER XV —INTO THE FIRE
CHAPTER XVI. THE MORROW OF VICTORY
CHAPTER XVII. SUPPORTED ON BAYONETS
CHAPTER XVIII. PLUCK AND LUCK
CHAPTER XIX. THE SECOND ROUND
CHAPTER XX. IF SHE WILL, SHE WILL
CHAPTER XXI. WELL AND TRULY LAID
CHAPTER XXII. THE BELLE AND THE BAUBLE
CHAPTER XXIII. BRIAN TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER XXIV. A SORE STRAIT
CHAPTER XXV. USE AND WONT
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Sydney C. Grier
Published by Good Press, 2021
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Far worse was the trouble that arose at Bombay. Eveleen had naturally taken it for granted that she would accompany her husband to the scene of his duties, but he told her curtly that Khemistan was not a place to which one could take ladies, and not knowing that Mrs Bayard was heroically attempting to defy the dangers of the climate, she accepted his dictum perforce. With Richard’s old butler to guide her inexperienced feet, she found herself established in a small hired bungalow—its ramshackle condition and shabby furniture made it feel really homelike,—mistress of what seemed to her huge sums of money, and pledged to keep accounts strictly. The result was what might have been expected. It was all very well for Ambrose to impress upon her that, apart from his political appointment, which might come to an end at any moment, he was still a poor man; her conception of poverty differed radically from his. He had inured himself to living on rice and chapatis in his comfortless bungalow—dinner at mess the one good meal of the day—that he might pay the subscriptions expected of him, and maintain a creditable appearance in public. The people of Eveleen’s world had cared nothing whatever about appearances, but had lived in a rude plenty, supported by contributions in kind from tenants whose rents were paid or not as the fancy took them—generally not. To Richard money was a regular institution, to be doled out with punctual care according to a plan carefully considered and rigidly fixed beforehand; to her it was a surprising windfall, affording delicious opportunities for the almost unknown joy of spending, and to be used accordingly. Her efforts at keeping accounts shared the fate of poor Dora Copperfield’s. The entries began by being rigorously minute, but they ceased with startling suddenness, unless the butler’s demands sent Eveleen flying to the book in horror, to put down what she could remember spending—which was very little in comparison with what she had spent. The extraordinary thing was that in these spasms of economy—which occurred periodically—she could find so dreadfully little to show for the vanished money. She might declare proudly that she had not bought a single thing for herself, and it was true, but the money was gone—how, she could not say. She was popular and hospitable, her possessions were all at the service of her friends and her friends’ servants, and her modest stable was a constant source of expense—even before she lit upon the half-starved, under-sized little Arab which she rescued from cruel treatment and named Bajazet because it sounded Eastern and imposing, and reconstructed her outbuildings to accommodate him properly. Then there was Brian, who was quartered at Poonah, and being a youth of keen affections, seized every opportunity of taking a little jaunt to Bombay to see his sister, who welcomed him on each occasion as if he were the Prodigal Son. Brian must be fed on the fat of the land—Eveleen had a wholly unjustified conviction that “sure the poor boys must be starved, without a woman to see after them,”—and his ever-recurring money troubles assuaged as far as possible. To do her justice—perhaps love made her clear-sighted, or in this one case she was able to see through Richard’s eyes—Eveleen did realise the danger of Brian’s living regularly beyond his income, and lecture him on the absolute need of pulling up. Brian listened meekly, promised to comply, accepted with almost tearful gratitude whatever his sister could scrape together to placate his most pressing creditors—and returned to duty, as often as not, to spend the money on something else.
Richard Ambrose was not left wholly ignorant of the Rake’s Progress on which his wife was embarked. Laborious epistles from the old butler betrayed anxiety lest Master’s interests should suffer, and friends coming up from Bombay brought amusing tales—amusing to them, that is—of Mrs Ambrose’s open-handedness. An opportune cholera scare enabled Ambrose to issue an edict of temporary banishment from the scene of temptation. Eveleen was to go up to Mahabuleshwar with the wife of one of her husband’s friends, to whom she was to pay a fixed sum monthly, and rusticate for awhile away from shops and entertainments. But temptation followed her even to the hills, though in a different guise. The place was the recognised summer headquarters of the Bombay Government, and the wife and daughters of the newly-arrived Commander-in-Chief were already in residence. To them came on flying visits Sir Henry Lennox himself, best loved and best hated of all the survivors of the Peninsula. Lady Lennox was what Eveleen characteristically called “aggressively motionless,” and her step-daughters were being painfully trained to follow in her decorous footsteps; but the veteran himself had a most appreciative eye for a pretty woman, and a ready enthusiasm for one who dared to ride wherever he did. Brian had wheedled a gullible commanding officer out of a week’s leave to see Eveleen comfortably settled, and the brother and sister and the scarred old soldier forgathered by some mysterious affinity, without any conventional presentation or introduction. The scandalised Military Secretary reported to the distressed Lady Lennox that it was all the fault of the Irish lady and her brother; but Lady Lennox—hearing hourly of break-neck gallops and impossible leaps—confessed in her heart of hearts that her susceptible warrior was in all probability just as much to blame. Her alarm extended merely to what Sir Harry was wont to call his “battered old carcass,” for he was too chivalrous an admirer of women in general to offer compromising attentions to one in particular. Imprudent he might be, but his imprudence confined itself to regaling Eveleen with scraps of autobiography of a startling character and moral deductions drawn from them, together with lurid denunciations of such of his many enemies as suggested themselves to his mind at the moment.
