THE GUN KETCH l-5

by Dewey Lambdin

  Chapter 1

  Alan Lewrie was jealous.

  It was a novel experience for him, this gnawing apprehension, instead of the cut-and-thrust, quickly done sort of rivalrous jealousy of his bachelorhood where the prize was discarded once gained, and the only thing that mattered was outwitting one's rivals. But now, with the prize becoming ever dearer to him, and with the evidence clear after his long enforced separation from Caroline, he was fearful that jealousy, and its attendant alarums, would be a permanent way of life, one never even hinted at in those tales of "happily-ever-after" one read of in fiction.

  For the characters of the smugly moral Richardson's novels, or even the risque rogues of a Fielding book, there was always a happy ending where two souls, after much bother of course, share a life of indolent bliss together, with nary a cross word, nary a threat once the principal villain has been dispatched. Spooning and bussing from morning 'til night in blessed mutual agreement, and in such sweetly disposed and addlepated disconnection with the rest of the scurvy world that it could go hang, as long as the Happy Couple got their tea water the right temperature, and nothing more distressful than burned toast ever seemed to plague them from that moment on.

  Then, of course, Alan Lewrie grumped moodily, there's the real world, and you're bloody welcome to it! All those writers; Fielding, Richardson, even bloody Smollett, were a tribe of debol-locked, clueless, hopeful… bachelors!

  It had begun soon after his return to Nassau Harbour to a hero's welcome as dizzying as a conquering Roman general might have received; the eight-day wonder, with manacled pirates as his captives to parade under the yoke as a spectacle in his triumph.The Spanish ladies he had freed were greeted and swooned over in the better salons in Nassau society as the epitomes of romantic tales in which the virtuous young maiden is rescued by an English knight from the dragon's very mouth, and Alan had been feted as their champion, much like a modern-day St. George.

  Until, of course, the town had learned that those poor, piteous senoritas had not done all a plucky English girl would have under the circumstances, that they had not gamely spurned their captors' Base Designs, as heroines in fiction seemed to do when taken by Turks and slung into the sultan's harem. Their social stock fell considerably, and with a great sigh of relief, and many muttered imprecations such as "… what may one expect; they're only dagos," and "blood will tell," they were hustled off for Cuba to complete their voyage quicker than one could say "knife," so rude fact could not contradict high-flown popular sentiment.

  As that fame faded for Alan, the trial which followed restored him to center stage, which trial resulted in a "hanging fair" as gay and cock-a-whoop as any he'd ever seen at Tyburn. And the trial had kept Alacrity in harbor for weeks so testimony could be taken, which had coincided with the height of the hurricane season, so Alacrity ended up swinging at her anchors even longer. Which enforced idleness was simply "the nuts" to Alan, for he could spend nights ashore with Caroline in their snug little home, and enjoy the fruits of his variant labors, and a hero's proper welcome. Deliriously happy as he felt, it was then that he began to see portents which disturbed him.

  It rankled him when officers from the garrison or Fort Montagu down the eastern road halted their rides together to tip their hats to her and converse a tad too gallantly for his liking. When he and Caroline went to town to shop or accept an invitation, gentlemen came up to them to exchange pleasantries and gossip from past social gatherings. Would they go to tea, to ecarti, a drum, rout or ball, or a cool evening salon, there would be fashionable young sprogs sidling up to her to discuss people and topics of which he was ignorant. At dances, he would end up grinding his teeth by the punch bowl as Caroline was surrounded by hopeful blades who begged just the one dance, or come nigh on snapping his neck to keep an eye on her as he performed his social obligations to dance with the stout, clumsy, or frippish matrons and their pimply, runny-nosed daughters.

  In his absence, Caroline had developed social relations with many Loyalist families, and a fair number of old-time Bahamians as well. She had also struck up a close friendship with Betty Mustin, Commander Benjamin Rodgers' "kept mutton," who was no shrinking violet when it came to accepting invitations.

  She and Caroline went coaching together, riding horseback as an almost inseparable pair, shopped and visited back and forth as dear as cater-cousins, and made the social rounds together, in company with the much older Peyton and Heloise Boudreau, their landlords, along as chaperones. Innocent as it sounded, Lewrie thought Betty Mustin just a bit "fly," and a disturbing influence.

  Perhaps it was all innocent socializing, he thought, but then he could remember being cock-of-the-company and buck-of-the-first-head in such circumstances, too, in his bachelor days, when he had preyed upon the loneliness of abandoned young matrons with an itch to scratch, and shammed being a "Robin Goodfellow" until they'd come around to his way of thinking. It gave him pause, it did.

  Giving him pause, too, was his reticence to believe that such deceit had entered his married life, or to bring up the ugly subject. What could he say that would not make him look like a foolish cully? Where could he draw a line without shaming her? How was a fellow to order some simpering young toad to sheer off and leave his wife alone in future? He was even fretful to mention it to her in private, if her tempestuous reactions to their first disagreement were anything to go by.

  That had occurred about a week after his return, after the dew was off the rose, so to speak.

  "Uhm, Caroline," he had asked, having regarded their paintings and sketches on the restfully pale tan walls of their house and found one missing. "Where's that oil o' mine, the large one with the women taking their baths?"

  "That nude harem scene?" she'd frowned, though fondly. "Alan, really, whatever could you have been thinking of to purchase it? It was taking up space, and I could not hang it anywhere decent people might see it. I sold it."

  "Sold it!" he'd goggled. "But I rather fancied…"

  "Traded it, really," she'd laughed quite matter-of-factly. "I obtained yon Sunset Over Nassau Harbour there. A local artist did it, Augustus Hedley. It has such lovely ships in it, and the colors are quite spectacular, do you not think? As near to any as ever I did see on our voyage here. Whenever I gaze upon it, it reminds me of our honeymoon aboard Alacrity, and makes me blissful."

  "You can look out the door and see sunset over Nassau Harbour, and all the ships you wish anytime you bloody well please," Alan had groused. "Why not a painting of a gash-bucket, then, ifyou want to be reminded of the voyage? Or the Townsleys at table? Pretty much the same, really. Horrid feeders, they were. And spewers."

  "We won't always live in Nassau, Alan," she had responded with a hug and sweet reason. "And then we will wish a memento of our time here. I quite like it. Don't you?"

  "Damned ships aren't even rigged proper, damme if they ain't. Who's this Hedley, then?"

  "The funny little fellow in the yellow ditto suits. We met him at the dance last week. He's very talented. He does everyone who is anyone's portraits. People say he's good as any in the Royal Academy."

  "Well, I hope he does noses better than he does masts, or he's overcharging," Alan had laughed.

  "Then must art depict reality so closely one could use it as an illustration in your Falconer's Marine Dictionary?" she'd asked him rather sharply. Ominously, there was a tiny vertical line of threat between her lovely brows, a line he could not recall seeing before. He'd sensed an argument, and had submitted, humphing into silence.

  The real explosion had come later after supper, as they sat on their breezeway savoring sundown and a post-prandial brandy. Alan had speculated, to his cost, which particular shade of green the house was now painted.

  "And the Boudreau house up the drive," he'd allowed easily, his feet extended, slumped down in an unpadded wooden chair Caroline had had a local carpenter construct. "Pink as cooked salmon. A bit off-putting, I must say. Whatever happened to white, cream, or gray like a London row house? All the
se pinks and blues and all…"

  "And pale mint green?" she had inquired. Very coolly. "Looks as if they could get nothing but castoff paints sent here," he'd blathered on, attempting to be amusing, "that pink must be a mix of ship's bottom-paint. White stuff and red stuff stirred up and slathered on, same as Alacrity'd get afore recoppering. I would have thought, long as you were painting, and they were, you'd have put your head together with Heloise and come up with a match."

  "I chose this mint green to make our house appear different, Alan," she had replied archly. "Not an extension, the gatehouse or coach-house to theirs any longer, as long as we live in it." "Well, it was, though, wasn't it, dear? And will be again." "So that no one would come riding by, see it, and wonder if it is still occupied by the head groom or their slave overseer! Really, Alan, you don't like it?"

  "Well, I didn't say that…"

  "Look at all I've accomplished," she'd demanded. "Look at all I've done to make a home for us! The garden out back, the flowers, the painting and carpentry work, and the… is there nought I have done that does meet with your approval, then? Must you cavil or carp and… and sneer… at every decision I made in your absence?"

  "Caroline…!" He'd wilted at her first tears.

  "I swear, Alan, you use me ill as…" she'd wept brokenly, just short of bawling fit to bust, "as… so many b… bears'."

  And he had had to pursue her, beg at their locked bedchamber door. Then once he'd at last gained entry, had had to cosset her, to dandle, kiss and spoon her, to calm her and confess what a total ass he was to be so unappreciative, and what a treasure she was, so clever and resourceful, and how pleased he was with things, in the main.

  Which had ended their first fight, that and the boisterous and healing lovemaking which had followed. Their first squall had been weathered. He dreaded a second.

  God a'mercy, Alan thought, she has done a lot in a little over four months. With all her endeavors, who'd have time for an affair, I ask you?

  The house was painted inside and out, and the wood trim shiny with white enamel against the interior's pale, sandy tan, or the exterior's light mint green. The roof had been patched with new shakes and tarred proof against tempestuous wind and rain. Their few carpets were clean, his dark blue settee and wing chairs were ensconced as a group at one end of the parlor area; hers had been recovered with yellow and floral chintz for another conversational grouping. His old table and chairs made a gaming area, whilst her table, eight chairs and the sideboard and cupboard were their dining facilities, and their few precious silver or silver-plate candlesticks, serving trays and tea things gleamed on display alongside the locking caddy for tea, sugar, coffee and chocolate.

  The floors were spotless, the drapes new, and sewn by Caroline's hands. Their few paintings (minus his harem scene) looked grand as Government House; his portrait he'd commissioned in '83 in uniform, some Chiswick forebears, his granny Lewrie, her favorite pastoral or hunt scenes, and the sea-battle granny Lewrie'dbought him at Ranelagh Gardens, and his anonymous Grand Tour sketches.

  She'd stored, away the heavy velvet bed curtains and replaced them with light, gauzy draperies to ward off insects-those that the ubiquitous lizards did not eat rather noisily in the night.

  On top of that, she'd camphored every upright clothes closet or drawer, lined everything with paper-thin cedar strips, kept the house in Bristol-fashion with just one maid-of-all-work housekeeper who came by the day, a free black woman named Wyonnie. And, not content with household economies, she had put in a vegetable garden, had tilled it with the help of Wyonnie's husband ind her aged father and his equally aged mule, watered it, tended it, weeded it, to the amazement of Nassau's white society who thought her youthfully eccentric; and to the slack-jawed stupefaction of the free blacks, who had never before beheld a white woman of even the least means do a lick of work if a slave could not be put to it first.

  Not content with a goodly crop of victuals such as corn, beans, pigeon peas, tomatoes and salad greens, Caroline, Heloise and Betty had ridden all over New Providence seeking flora to plant about the house, to screen the back lot from the main house, and to beautify it. The pale green house was now awash in an informal, lush jungle.

  There were tamarinds and acacia, torch ginger and jump-up-and-kiss-me, little Tree-Of-Life bushes with indigo flowers, frangipani or red jasmine, cascarillas, bright yellow elder, both red and purple bougainvillea vines on trellises framing the porches and the dog-run. There were flamboyants with blooms as big as birdbaths, poinsettias and poincianas, bird of paradise, angel's trumpet and flamingo flowers in gaudy profusion. There were replanted palmettos for a hedge, and young saplings in tubs-key-lime and lemon trees, sapodillas, soursops and guavas, candle-woods and sea grapes.

  And, braving the forgelike heat of the kitchen in high summer (a spotless kitchen!), Caroline had put up exotic new fruit preserves in stone crocks; an impressive selection was now ranked row upon row in the pantry. And that was on top of her cider vinegars, her dried and candied preserve slices, her…

  Considering all she had accomplished in so little time, at so little cost, was daunting!

  I've the handsomest, sweetest, cleverest, and (God rot your soul, Uncle Phineas) the most economical young wife on the face of this earth, Alan concluded. So why do 1 feel like Harry Embleton?

  Chapter 2

  "So who is this Finney, then?" Alan asked, attempting to sound casual about it as he emerged from the water and sat down on the hard sand just above the lapping wavelets.

  "John Finney?" Peyton Boudreau replied, opening one lazy eye from a doze. "Quite the hero hereabouts, don't ye know, haw haw! A damned rich'un, too!"

  "Striking fellow," Alan allowed as he toweled down from a dip in waist-deep water, no more. Most sailors could not swim, and Alan was proof of that particular truism.

  "Aye, he is," the elder man agreed. "Pity he's so low."

  "Is he?" Alan inquired, relishing this "dirt" on the suitor he feared the most. He'd re-met the artist Augustus Hedley and found him to be a simpering, mincing, dandy-prat lap dog to the Nassau ladies, a flagrant "Molly," said to be exiled on remittance by his family so his predilections would not harm their reputation. Most of the others had sheered off once Alan was back. But Finney…!

  "Dublin bogtrotter," Peyton Boudreau snickered. "A product of the stews. Went for a sailor young, and drifted out here. The Lord be praised, he's a Bay Street merchant now, though. Owns ships. Has the best imported slaves. Doesn't deal with the dagos in His-paniola, he sends vessels to Africa for 'black ivory.' Imported in prime condition, too, 'stead of the usual third lost. Fancy goods from all over, the latest fashions. All the delicacies which make life tolerable. Runs packets from the Continent in all seasons, hang the winter gales or hurricanes. Don't see how he manages that, but he does. Ah, think I'll go back in and dip meself."

  Lewrie watched the elegant older man rise and pad into the sea to flop on his belly and paddle about, and wondered how he could gain more information about Finney without looking foolish. Or concerned.They were on a "maroon" on Hog Island, on the white-sand beach on the nor'west shore. It was a popular amusement in the Bahamas to sail out to a deserted cay with food and "guzzle," set up a camp with furniture, cooking utensils and perhaps a pavilion, and go salt-water bathing in total privacy. Some even spent an entire day and a night, though most returned at dusk. The Boudreaus were great devotees of it, and had suggested that Alan and Caroline, with Betty Mustin along, too, might enjoy the excursion.

  Caroline, Betty and the older but still impressive Heloise were down the beach a way, cavorting in the water and laughing and giggling gay as so many ducklings. They had gone into the boat in old sack gowns without stays or underpinnings, with only one underskirt. Straw hats and parasols, their oldest cracked shoes, cotton stockings and towels were the thing for the ladies. Those, and a single voluminous shift of light cotton or muslin to drape themselves in between dunkings. At present, from what little Alan could see, they were bathing nu
de, or with a short chemise at best!

  Alan rose and strode back into the water for more information, the December sunshine almost kind for once to his back and shoulders. After hurricane season ended around the first of November, the Bahamas were cooled by northerly or westerly winds, the daytime temperatures never soared much above mild, and the nights got downright coolish if a brisk breeze was blowing off the ocean, but never shivering cold.

  He waded out to chest-deep and bobbed about in the gin-clear water slightly tinged pale turquoise, ducking his head now and again.

  "You said he was a hero?" Alan asked once Peyton had paddled near enough. The older man stood in the water and swiped his short-cut hair dry.

  "Who, Finney?" Peyton asked, wiggling an ear clear of water.

  "Yes, what did he do?"

  "Privateer, sir," Peyton smiled. "A most successful privateer. Ended up with a flotilla of his own in these waters. Spanish, French, Rebels… no vessel was safe from him. 'Tis bruited about he took over two hundred thousand pounds sterling in prize money. But what sealed his repute was when the Spanish took Nassau in '82, just before the Revolution ended. You know of Col. Andrew Deveaux, the Loyalist soldier from, I'm quite proud to say, dear South Carolina of my birth?"

  "I've heard of him."

  "Well, he determined upon an expedition to retake Nassau, all on his own," Peyton bragged on his former neighbor. "Sailed a scratch militia here, April of '83, with what weapons they could come up with. Tag-rag-and-bobtail effort, with no help from the Crown, you see. Well, Finney threw in with him! Brought a brace of his privateers tricked out as ships of war. They rowed their so-called troops ashore and landed them. Then they had those few men lay down in the boats and rowed back out, looking empty, to supposedly embark another batch. Kept it up until the Dons figured they were hopelessly outnumbered, and they threw it up as a bad bargain, d'you see, haw haw! Quite a stunt! And with not 200 men, all told!"