Much Ado About Lewrie

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Do see if there is something I might enjoy,” she bade him. “And do not bring home any stray dogs or cats, seeing as how you are their … hee hee hee!” she laughed, spun round and dashed upstairs.

  “Sir?” Pettus asked, handing him his gloves and walking stick.

  “Never mind, Pettus,” Lewrie said, groaning. “It’s an old joke.”

  * * *

  It was a nippy morning with a bit of wind, and there was light snow that had fallen in the night, a dusting that swirled about on the cobblestones and the sidewalks. Even so, despite the chill and the wind, dozens of men and boys had their noses pressed to the bookstore bow window to look at the latest caricatures and social cartoons.

  Lewrie ignored them and entered the shop, pausing to pull off his gloves before going to the shelves where new fiction was kept.

  “Oho, now that is funny!” a customer brayed.

  Lewrie looked over and froze in dread. “No!” he muttered.

  Rowlandson, Gillray, Isaac Cruickshank, all the leading artists had something about the National Society To Eliminate Cruelty In All Forms Against Animals! He wanted to see how badly he was depicted, but feared that all of London would be laughing about him by noon! Lewrie finally got his feet to move and went to peer at them.

  “Oh!” he said. “Cruickshank’s not so bad,”

  They were having a parade, with two feeble old men in wigs leading, carrying their banner. Behind, a fat fellow carried sheep under both arms, an over-dressed woman with a gigantic wig hung with birds had her legs round a horse’s neck, trying to plant her lips on the beast as she hung upside down, while two younger fellows presented fighting cocks to each other. Someone was being savaged by at least fifty cats, an angel with a trumpet soared overhead, carrying a basket of bewildered dogs, and impish boys dashed about chasing squirrels.

  Our newest saviours was the headline.

  Gillray’s caricature was much the same, making buffoons of the society.

  It was only Rowlandson who drew a fellow in a Navy uniform, on the run from an host of animals and a crowd of Society members drawn as rabble rousers with signs on sticks, shouting “But You Are Our Champion!” and the Navy officer’s ribbon of speech crying “Get away from me! I love animals, but I don’t love you!”

  “I wonder who the Navy officer is?” a customer close by asked.

  “A most reluctant fellow, it appears,” Lewrie answered with a sigh of relief.

  How did Rowlandson know about me? Lewrie had to wonder; And if he did, how’d he know I don’t hold with them? Someone at the club?

  “What sort of people are in this horrible society?” the customer went on. “This is the most un-English prattle I’ve ever heard!”

  “Bugger ’em,” Lewrie commented. “I think I’ll take one of each. No more fox hunting? No more cock fights? They’re lunaticks!”

  “Amen to that, sir, amen to that,” the customer heartily agreed.

  I’ll still write that letter to The Times, Lewrie told himself; Just t’make it clear that I have nothing t’do with ’em!

  “You wish the newest, sir?” a store clerk asked.

  “Aye, one each for myself, and one each for my father,” Lewrie told him. “The hand-coloured versions.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Really?” the Reverend Chenery beamed, making sounds of amusement in a genteel way, then dabbed his lips with his napkin. “Who could have expected such a society could hold such views. The Lord in the Garden of Eden ordered us to be stewards to the whole Earth, with mastery over the beasts of the fields, the birds in the air, and the fish in the sea. But, I doubt if he wished us to honour them more than our fellow men! Why, one might as well allow rats, mice, roaches, and spiders free rein. No no. I’m sure those people read the Old Testament all wrong.

  “But, as the Bard tells us, ‘all’s well that end’s well,’” Reverend Chenery went on, as was his wont. “And you were most fortunate, Sir Alan, to not be tarred with the same brush. Bless me, but someone was privy to your identity, yet forebore to name you publicly. It is a mystery, indeed.”

  “Aye, I was fortunate, sir,” Lewrie told him, “and aye, it is a mystery, and most-like will remain so. I suspect it might have been a member of the Madeira Club who knew Mister Rowlandson somehow, and asked him to spare me. Someone who attended the supper at Nerot’s? Either way, their tracts were bad enough.”

  “Ah, the club, Alan,” Sir Hugo, who had also been invited over to supper, said. “Perhaps we should take Reverend Chenery along as a guest some night.”

  “The Madeira Club, Sir Hugo?” Chenery asked, then turned his head as a good-sized currant pudding was brought to the table, and lit.

  “One I, and several other gentlemen, founded years ago, sir,” Sir Hugo boasted, “one to fill the social needs for gentlemen of trade, and middling status who could not aspire to be selected as members in the older, settled, or aristocratic clubs. At the corner of Duke and Wigmore Streets. Lawyers, Members of the Commons, men in corn, coal, leather, wool, and such? Their cooks, and the victuals, are superb. Never had a mediocre meal there, have we, son?”

  “Superb indeed, father,” Lewrie had to agree.

  “And their wine cellars rival any club, or new-fangled restaurant, in London,” Sir Hugo added. “But for the Rainwater Madeira, which simply can’t be found these days, sorry to say.”

  “Frankly, I’ve never had a single sip of it,” Lewrie admitted.

  “It sounds delightful, Sir Alan,” Rev. Chenery said, “and I am now most curious to partake of it, and would be immensely grateful to you both for the kind invitation!”

  “Capital!” Sir Hugo cried, slapping the table top. “We must set a day.”

  “Ehm … might I extend an invitation in return, Sir Hugo, Sir Alan?” Chenery said, getting an excited look on his phyz. “You know of my long interest in antiquities, and my brother Robert’s post as the Chair of Antiquities at Oxford. Well, he and I, and several other prominent scholars, are proposing an expedition, or a series of expeditions, to America to track down some intriguing mysteries of our own.”

  Oh no, here we go again! Lewrie thought, though keeping his face pleasant.

  “For instance, on one of the earliest maps of the coastlines on Massachusetts, done by Amerigo Vespucci,” the Reverend enthused, “an eight-legged stone structure similar to a grist mill is depicted as a landwark for mariners, long before any White settlements, pre-dating the Puritans. How did it come to be there? Vikings? Templars fleeing their persecution? We wish to go see it. Study it, delve its secret.”

  “Ah, hmm,” Sir Hugo pretended interest. “Intriguing indeed.”

  The Reverend began listing all the anomalies, the Roman coins purportedly washing up on a beach near Beverly, Massachusetts, a stele stone up the coast with Phoenician inscriptions, thousands of copper pit mines in the Ohio and Michigan Territories that supposedly produced far more ore than the Indians could have ever used, even for money or their own crude metallurgy.

  “We engaged a clever and plucky fellow earlier this year to make the arrangements, list what we would need to take with us, and scout the areas we wish to explore, Sir Hugo,” Reverend Chenery told them. “A Major Robert Beresford, late of the Thirty Third…”

  “Oh, I do believe Alan mentioned his name to me, long ago,” Sir Hugo perked up. Especially perked up as a portion of pudding was set before him by Dasher. “Mean t’say, he’s gone and reconnoitered for you already?”

  “Yes, Sir Hugo,” Chenery happily said. “And a most thorough job he did of it, too! We are to have a meeting of our donors and participants here in London next week, with many coming down from Oxford for the planning of our first expedition in the Spring. I do believe that both of you, whether you would wish to contribute or not, would find it enlightening and eye-opening. Imagine, if we could prove that the Americas were discovered, even settled for a time, by Europeans, and not ‘found’ by Columbus! The world would stand on its ear!”

  �
��Uncle Robert is coming down from Oxford?” Jessica asked, happy to see her far-off kin again. “Alan, you should meet him. He’s a most interesting man, and so well educated and knowledgeable. When I was a girl, I stood in awe of his intellect, and what he knew!”

  “Well, I’d go to your meeting,” Lewrie had to say, under the eye of his wife. “Might be intriguing, at that. Father?”

  “Just so long as no one expects me to hack my way through woods and hike ten miles a day,” Sir Hugo allowed, harumphing. “I’ve done my expeditions in India with the jangli admi, tigers, cobras, and such. It does sound … enlightening, sir. Yes, I’ll listen to your man.”

  “Mmm, mmm, this pudding is swimming with red currants,” Reverend Chenery enthused between bites, “and veins and swirls of red currant jam in it as well. Sir Alan, your man, Yeovill, is a treasure, a true, national treasure.”

  “He’s full of surprises,” Lewrie heartily agreed, “but never a disappointment. Oh, this is good!”

  Conversation fell off, leaving only the sounds of forks on the plates, and an occasional “yummy” sound. That was when all became aware of an irregular plop-plop-plop coming from the front of the house.

  Lewrie looked out the dining room door to the hall, to see their butler, Pettus, making his way to the entry hall, and he rose to join him.

  “Hail, Pettus?” Lewrie speculated. “It wasn’t storming. It felt more like it may snow, but…”

  “Doesn’t sound like hail, no sir,” Pettus said, un-locking the front door and swinging it open. “Oh, my word!” he exclaimed.

  Lewrie stepped out to join him, his shoes crackling on the stone stoop, and on an host of shattered egg shells. He looked up and some yolk that had been oozing down from the Doric arch over the door fell on his hair and the side of his head.

  “Don’t see anyone in the street, sir,” Pettus said, looking up and down Dover St. There wasn’t enough fine snow to reveal footprints. They both went out into the street to survey the damage; luckily, the eggs had not been hard enough to break window panes.

  “Who do you think did it, sir?” Pettus asked, bewildered.

  “Some people who didn’t read my letter in The Times, or can’t read at all,” Lewrie gravelled, “or people from that damned Society, who think me a traitor to their cause. God-dammit! It’ll be cold as charity tomorrow, and our house staff’ll have to clean all this up, sweep the walk…” He would have snarled more, but he stepped on a smear of yolk and almost slipped.

  He led Pettus back inside, taking off the offending shoe and went to join the others in the dining room. “We have another mystery on our hands, it seems,” he announced. “It appears we spoke too soon of people not knowing my identity. The house has just been very thoroughly egged! It ain’t over, not by a long chalk. There’s someone, one side or the other, who thinks me the Devil, with hooves, horns, and barbed tail.”

  “Well, I thought that letter to The Times would only add fuel to the fire,” Sir Hugo said with a sniff, while licking crumbs from his fork.

  “You never!” Lewrie accused. “I had t’clear myself!”

  “Have it your own way,” Sir Hugo breezily replied. “I think I’ll have a bit more of this grand pudding, if nobody minds.”

  What a supportive father you are, you old fart! Lewrie thought.

  * * *

  “Uncle” Robert Chenery, the Professor of Antiquities at Oxford, made it down to London in a hired coach, and caused a great change in the daily routine. First of all, to save money on lodgings, he moved into St. Anselm’s manse with his brother, Rev. Chenery, which turned the usually meek minister into a cringing, fawning addle-pate, eager to accommodate his elder brother’s every whim. Prof. Chenery brought along two of his colleagues, a fussy fellow with a shock of unruly hair named Fogge, and a portly trencherman who could eat for three and still feel hungry, one Professor Dolittle. They took over Charles Chenery’s vacant bedchamber and a guest room, and pretty-much made the manse their own, and they had not fetched along their manservants to help round the house, either.

  Jessica was delighted to see her Uncle Robert, all but gawping at his side, kneeling by his chair, to hear his witticisms and his learned comments. Lewrie had to feed the lot of them at least three times over their extended stay, and a dry and dull time it was, to his lights.

  In point of fact, Professor Chenery turned out to be a pluperfect ass, with the punch lines of his witty comments delivered in Latin or Greek, followed by a hearty haw haw haw brayed from himself over how clever he’d been, and simpered at or hurrayed by Fogge or Dolittle as they toadied up. At the various public schools that Lewrie had been sent to in hopes that some knowledge would stick to him, he had done passably well at Latin, but without practice necessary to the career of a rakehell, or a Navy officer, Latin was, indeed, a dead and ancient language to him. As for Greek, well … he didn’t even know how to spell it, much less decypher Prof. Chenery’s droplets of wisdom or wit.

  Just as well I didn’t go to Oxford, he told himself; if all the Dons are tyrants and bullies like him. I even feel sorry for Reverend Chenery, who’s turned into a shrinking violet. And when do they leave, please Jesus?

  At last, the day or the conference, or whatever it was, about the pending expedition, was to be held. Jessica’s father had offered his church for the meeting, but his elder brother had rebuffed that; there had to be a dinner, and wine and spirits. A banquetting hall had to be engaged.

  “A promise is a promise,” Sir Hugo grumbled as they alit from his coach, in front of the banquetting hall where they had held the wedding breakfast for Pettus and Lucy. “Damme, d’ye think the owner will recognise us and boot us out?”

  “Faint hopes, that,” Lewrie said with a shake of his head. “In mufti, he might not notice we’re here.”

  “Wish I wasn’t,” his father carped. “One supper with that lot and I’m ready to beg off and go grouse hunting in Scotland. My word, what a pack of pompous buggers! Aha, there you are, Professor!” Sir Hugo more loudly cried in greeting to Prof. Chenery. “Today’s the day, what?”

  “Carpe diem, Sir Hugo,” Chenery boomed. “A day to be seized! And Sir Alan, good day to you as well, sir! Be sure to get good seats up front, for the discussions will be thrilling and informative.”

  Once free of hats, gloves, overcoats, and walking sticks, Lewrie and his father got glasses of claret and circled the room being introduced to the other attendees. One of whom was a surprise; Sir Malcolm Shockley!

  “I say, sir,” Sir Hugo said in greeting, “I had no idea you were interested in this. Donated, have you?”

  “I must own to curiosity, old friend,” Sir Malcolm said, “all this speculation about Phoenicians, Romans, Vikings, and Templars fair makes my imagination soar. Though, I do confess it would please me greatly to find that America was really discovered by Englishmen.”

  “Englishmen, Sir Malcolm?” Lewrie asked.

  “The Templars, Sir Alan,” Shockley said with a grin, “they had a sizeable trading fleet, and warships to protect them. In England and in Scotland, there were Knight Commanderies, Templar churches that still stand. Once the King of France and the Catholic Church rounded them up to confiscate their wealth, slew them as heretics, and freed the King of his heavy debts to them by the by, the survivors, and the Templars in Britain, had to go somewhere safe cross the seas where no-one knew to follow. My money’s on England. Or some Scots, if it has to be. Shall we take a table together?”

  There were many square tables set out for four, with one long table at the head of the hall where Prof. Chenery, Fogge, Dolittle, and a few other of the more learned sat, with one military-looking fellow in his late thirties or early fourties, whom Lewrie took for that Major Beresford that Rev. Chenery had mentioned.

  Out came bottles or carafes of wine from the kitchens, followed by soup and bread rolls, then a fish course, a fowl course, then the roast beef, with vegetable removes, and merry, anticipatory conversation

  Finally, after pudding, p
ort, and coffee, Prof. Chenery heaved his bulk to his feet and opened the meeting formally, requesting his brother to offer a prayer for their enlightenment and success, and he then began a long, dry lecture.

  He covered all the possibilities, from Phoenicians to Carthaginians, early Greeks who might have sailed beyond Italy and Sicily and out the Pillars of Hercules; teen Emperor Valentinus the Second, who would be murdered by his mother and a Goth general, and might have despatched his navies in search of a place of safety, citing possible evidence for each.

  “Would it be impolite to pull out my watch to see how much time this windbag is wasting?” Sir Hugo whispered. “He ain’t even up to the Vikings yet?”

  Lewrie looked round the hall, eyes half-lidded, to note the few who had almost succumbed to the heavy dinner, and the attendees who sat rapt, nodding sagely. Rev. Chenery, at a table nearer the long table, seemed ready to squirm with eagerness.

  At very long last, Prof. Chenery introduced Major Beresford who had been to America recently to scout the first goals of the expedition set for Spring, to warm applause.

  “Gentlemen,” Major Robert Beresford began, standing four-square in a military pose, and speaking in a voice that carried to the far corners of the hall, “I have lived a life of adventure and exploration so far, in travels with my regiment, and to the far corners of our world. India, Egypt, the Holy Land, and the forests and lakes of British North America, and many wonders have I and my travelling companions seen. On my most recent trip to the United States, mostly in Massachusetts and New England, I have found hints and clues, enigmatic so far, of what your society wishes to discover, and I am happy to report to you that the first expedition, first of many, could prove fruitful.”

  Loud cheers and huzzahs greeted those statements.

  “Not only have I seen the grist-mill structure, I have asked the locals about its origins,” Beresford went on, “and they have no clue about its age, or who built it, but some learned fellows who attended their local college, Harvard, have taken note that what look to be arrow slits high up above where a wood floor once stood, might be an arrangement to determine the timing of the solstices, and might be a religious artifact for some so far unknown tribe or community, but it is definitely not the sort of thing erected by the native Indians.”