"Must've missed that'un," Lewrie said after a deep quaff of ale. And feeling a bit of hope. "But so many people were just sick of the war, the shortages and taxes… "
"England ain't one o' those damned democracies, as mob-driven as ancient Greeks!" Sir Hugo hooted mirthlessly. "And thank God for that! Recall what that scribbler Edmund Burke wrote… that intercourse with the French is more terrible than fightin' 'em? Give 'em leave and they'll spread their revolutionary ideas everywhere. Uhm, 'The spread of her doctrines… are the most dreadful of her arms'?" he quoted.
"Missed that'un, too," Lewrie replied, cocking his head at his sire. "Damme, when did you take up readin' so much?"
"I'm a retired gentleman o' means," Sir Hugo snickered back, "a fellow with the time for it… 'mongst other, more pleasant things, o' course. At any rate, Bonaparte and the Frogs ain't happy, as I say. He evacuated Taranto, but we're still in Alexandria and Malta, a year after we were s'posed t'turn 'em over to the Turks, and the French. We gave France back her West Indies colonies, and we got Trinidad and Ceylon, but lately… "
"And the French are more than welcome to Saint Domingue," Lewrie stuck in. "Toussaint L'Ouverture and his generals're killin' Frogs by the ship-load, even if the French did capture the old bugger and rout his men. They're still givin' General Leclerc fits in the jungles… ambushin' anything smaller than a brigade. That and Yellow Jack-"
"Of late, Addington's added Holland and Switzerland to our objections," Sir Hugo continued, "and Piedmont in Italy. Bonaparte'll get Malta ten years from now, if he pulls his armies out and lets the Dutch and the Swiss alone, and Bonaparte can't agree t'that. He's dead set on riggin' up all these damned republics, with his eyes on all of Europe, eventually. It's comin', Alan me son, it's comin', for sure.
"And, if it's as much joy t'you as it was t'me," Sir Hugo added with a grin, "there's word that General Leclerc, Bonaparte's brother-in-law, died of a tropic fever on Saint Domingue. People also told me that there's a General… or Marshal… Victor with a large army in Holland… Batavian Republic!" his father spat, "ready t'sail for the Indies. Perhaps Bonaparte will end up killin' as many French soldiers as Henry Dundas did of ours when he was Secretary of State at War, ha!"
"That'd be lovely," Lewrie wolfishly agreed. Before, his hatred of the French was personal, limited to only a few individuals he'd met and opposed face-to-face. Now, though… it was "damn 'em all, root and branch," with Napoleon Bonaparte at the top of his list.
"Horse Guards rarely talks with the Admiralty," Sir Hugo drolly said, "but there have been some discussions I've been made privy to… some folderol over increasing the size of the Royal Marines for duties at sea with the transfer of a battalion of foot to the Navy, doled out in platoons per each ship. Heard anything from the Navy yourself?"
"About another active commission? No," Lewrie had to tell him. "Dear as I wish it… give me something to do again."
"You very well may, soon," his father attempted to assure him. The old rascal had risen to Major-General and the senior military officer to the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey for a brief time during the Nore and Spithead naval mutinies, when for a time it had looked as if French Jacobin revolution would come to England, too, and he'd done the Crown yeoman service in 1797. Retired he might be, but he was still on the Army List, and he still had good connexions, so… perhaps he was not being kind. Not that Lewrie could remember too many instances in their spotty past when Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby had been kind! Only if it didn't cost him tuppence! Lewrie not-so-fondly thought.
"Another matter…," Sir Hugo said, after finishing his ale and waving for another. "Hugh's nigh thirteen, now. If the war begins again, I might be able to wangle him his 'set of colours' with a good regiment… Ensign, first. Bit young for a Lieutenant… though, there are a fair number o' twelve-year-old Captains, if their parents have enough 'blunt' to purchase their commissions. Can't make Brigadier, or higher, if ye start late, ye know."
Lewrie delayed his answer by paying attention to his ale. They had spoken of this before, years ago, and after the funeral, before Hugh and Sewallis had had to return to their public school.
"I want to kill Frenchmen, father," Hugh had said in a shudder of barely controlled emotion, tears at the corner of his eyes. "If we ever fight them again, I wish to go to sea, like you, and kill as many of them as ever I may!"
And even Sewallis, his usually subdued and quiet first-born, had evinced stony-hearted anger, had whispered "Amen to that!" and stated his desire to avenge his mother. "Blood for blood," he'd whispered.
"A good shot, a decent swordsman, and possessed of a splendid seat," Sir Hugo reminded Lewrie. "Intelligent and daring is our Hugh. Active… a keen sportsman? Make a grand officer. Hmm?"
"He wants t'be me," Lewrie told the old rogue. "He'd prefer to be a Midshipman. When answering all those letters of condolence from my fellow captains and such, I requested they keep Hugh in mind, should they get a ship, in future. Thankee for the offer, but… his heart's set on the Navy. So he can kill a shit-pot o' Frogs, he said."
"Well then, I'll say no more about it," Sir Hugo said with a bit of a sigh. "Least Hugh's future's assured. And Sewallis'll inherit, so more schoolin's more suitable for him. University, perhaps?"
"'Ere ye go, sirs!" the fetching new brunette waitress declared as she delivered two heaping plates of steak and kidney pie, and a new round of ale. There was fresh white bread, lashings of butter with it, mashed potatoes with spring peas, and, the girl promised, figgy-dowdy for sweets, after. "Any o' ye gentlemen need anything, just call out!"
"Public schools're ruin enough for young lads," Lewrie objected with a growl. "University's a good deal worse."
After leaving the Olde Ploughman, Sir Hugo wished to go on out to his estate, and invited Lewrie to join him in his coach. Lewrie agreed to join him, but wished to exercise Anson, so he would ride by the coach instead, perhaps canter on ahead and meet him there.
His father had sent letters on to alert his house staff to have everything ready for his arrival from London. As his coach rolled to a stop in front of the wide and deep front gallery of the low, rambling one-storey bungalow built in imitation of an East India Company cantonment, there was his butler, cook, estate agent, stableman and groom, a brace of gamekeepers, four maids-of-all-work, some ten- or twelve-year-old lads who would assist at anything from the barns to the kitchens, and Sir Hugo's long-time Army orderly and manservant, the one-eyed old Sikh Trilochan Singh. Bows and curtsies, doffed hats, and wide smiles all round as the carriage box and boot were un-loaded, and the horses led off to the stables. Singh saluted and stamped boots, sepoy fashion.
"Better than I thought, what hey, Singh?" Sir Hugo exclaimed in joy over his latest improvements. "Damme, but the flowerin' bushes and such do make the place attractive." There were even hanging baskets of some sort of flowers strung from the gallery's overhead porch beams.
The summer wicker or bamboo furniture had been set out on the gallery, along with a couple of rope hammocks, too; both of them large enough to accommodate two people at a time.
Plan t'strum a girl in one of em? Lewrie had to think, grinning as he had a mental picture of a full-moon romp in the nude, neighbours and house staff bedamned. Well, he is set in the middle of all these acres, he told himself; maybe he could pull it off with no one wiser.
"Some o' your cool tea, here on the gallery?" Sir Hugo suggested. "Must admit, it's refreshin', that notion o' yours, so I took it up."
"Capital," Lewrie agreed, taking a seat as the tea was ordered.
"Ah, the country!" Sir Hugo said with a happy sigh, sprawling on a wicker settee and its canvas-covered padding, one booted leg atop a woven cane ottoman, with his neck-stock removed, his shirt collars open, and his coat off. "I'd love t'spend a whole fortnight, but I've business back in London. No more'n a week, this trip. Later on in the summer, well… might spend a whole two months! Clean air, refreshin' breezes… good horses, and long, open fields, what?"
"Absolutely," Lewrie had to agree, more by rote than anything else. He got the feeling that there might be one more "shoe to drop." His father was not one for small talk or idle invitations-unless he had a good reason for it.
"Yours, when I'm gone, lad," Sir Hugo reminded him as the cool tea arrived. Trilochan Singh must have been responsible for its brewing, for there were slices of lemon and a pot of light brown turbinado sugar from the first pressings, already ground fine. "All of it, lock, stock, and barrel. Ever, erm… ever given thought t'removing in here now? Mean t'say… if Hugh's t'go for a sailor, and Sewallis is t'be away at school if you get a ship… well, it's bags roomier than your place. Charlotte's still lodgin' with Governour and Millicent?"
"Aye, but… that was only temporary, while Caroline and I…," Lewrie replied, then paused, reminded again that there was no Caroline, and never would be. "If I do gain a new command," he slowly said, "it might be best did she board with 'em. I'd pay for her tutor and music teacher and all that, but… that's where she is now. Charlotte has gotten it into her head that…"
He sat up with his elbows on his knees, the cool glass of tea in both hands, squirming in shame to announce that evil rumour.
"There's some say it was my fault Caroline was killed," he told Sir Hugo, growing angry. "Damn 'em! Don't know what Millicent thinks, she's sweet and kind, most of the time, but Governour… he's always disapproved of my… well, ye know what he disapproved of. At their place so much, Charlotte thinks it was my fault, too! She was always Caroline's daughter, first and last, and with me gone so much, and… those letters comin' and makin' Caroline so bitter, the girl was dead-set against me and took Caroline as Gospel. Even after I came home last winter, Charlotte's been missish and stand-off-ish with me, and I don't know what t'do about it. The boys, I can understand, but her?
"I leave her in Governour's clutches, I might as well give her up," Lewrie said with a bitter sigh. "Don't suppose you'd take her on in London, would you? Like you did with Sophie?"
"Not a chance in Hell," Sir Hugo baldly stated. "Young ladies I can deal with… not with head-strong little girls. Besides…"
"She might cramp your doin's?" Lewrie said with a mirthless chuckle.
"There is that," Sir Hugo cheerfully admitted. "Without a wife in yer house, without a step-mother t'rear her up… I don't suppose ye'd consider marryin' again."
"Not a chance in Hell," Lewrie assured his father. "Besides… how'd it look, with the first year of mournin' not half over? And who could I trust t'do right by her… and me?"
"Just a thought," Sir Hugo said, waving one hand idly to shoo his suggestion away. "Now, do ye let Governour and Millicent have her through an active commission, that's what… three years or more out at sea, halfway round the world, before ye have t'come home to re-fit?"
"About that, aye," Lewrie sombrely agreed. "A dockyard re-fit in England, but still held active, it might be five or six years."
"And all that time, yer house sittin' empty and idle? Left in the hands of an estate agent ye don't know whether t'trust?" Sir Hugo speculated. "Up-keep not done… rats and mice everywhere? Rent paid t'Phineas Chiswick, with little return? That's rum."
"What are you gettin' at?" Lewrie asked suddenly, thinking that that shoe was about to be dropped, and he wouldn't much care for it.
"Ye haven't spoken with Phineas Chiswick or with Burgess?" his father asked, brows up as if surprised that Lewrie was still in the dark.
"As little as possible to the first, and not since the funeral to the second," Lewrie answered. "Why?"
"Ye really haven't," Sir Hugo realised, sitting up straighter and seeming to squirm, his lined face turning pinker. "Damn! Would've thought ye'd heard."
"Heard bloody what?" Lewrie demanded.
"Phineas and Governour think that Burgess should have a country estate of his own, son," Sir Hugo began. "Near his kinfolk, d'ye see? Close t'London and Horse Guards, 'stead of way up at High Wycombe with his wife's parents. Handier for the Trenchers, t'boot, do they wish a week or two in the country, callin' on their daughter and son-in-law. And…," Sir Hugo said with a sly, worldly look, "I do recall that the Trenchers are simply un-Godly rich, and ye know how Phineas Chiswick slavers like a jowly hound if he hears two guineas rub t'gether. What better sort of neighbours could he wish?"
"Phineas can't turf me out," Lewrie snapped, "not as long as I stay current in my rents, and there's no chance o' me fallin' behind! I've prize-money in the bank, interest from the Funds, and, thank God, we've had two years o' good corn crops, and the price o' wool's still high, despite the peace, so he can't. It's a long-term lease, dammit!"
"I vow I never thought t'hear ye speak o' crops and wool prices like ye knew what they were," his father said with a snicker. "Oh, he could buy you out, any time he felt like it, son. There's Burgess… come home from India a 'chicken nabob' with more'n fifty thousand pounds… There's the Trenchers, who might've made a round million since the war began in Ninety-Three. Considerin' all the improvements ye've made over the years, Phineas Chiswick might have to pay ye twelve or fifteen hundred pounds. But he could turn round and offer it to Burgess as a lease, and make that back before he goes toes up.
"Phineas don't have anyone t'inherit, mind ye," Sir Hugo sagely pointed out. "His first two wives died without issue, so he's no sons t'leave it to, and he's the miserly sort who'd take all his property t'Hell with him, could he figure out how. Or keep it together after he's gone. It's good odds it'll all go to Governour, since he's the elder of his nephews… and Governour's been doin' the old bastard's will since he got here, schemin t'be his sole heir. Eatin' his shit and runnin' his errands and smilin' all the while, haw haw!"
"Even so, I don't see Governour keepin' Burgess as a tenant," Lewrie said, frowning with concentration, "thinkin' t'prosper off his own brother in rents."
"Rent for now, then will the farm to Burgess when Phineas dies… 'til then, Governour'd be responsible for up-keep and working the crops and herds… same as he does for his own lands, and Phineas's," Sir Hugo explained. "Then both brothers end up freeholders, and able t'vote in the borough. Hunt, fish, trap game… both end up country gentry. It ain't exactly the Christian thing t'do, turfin' ye out so soon after Caroline's passin', but… what can ye expect from such a purse-proud old miser?
"And there's what ye leave the children t'consider," Sir Hugo added after a long, contemplative sip of tea, and a fond gaze over his own vista and acres. "Should the French manage t'kill ye before ye inherit Dun Roman, that is. Another twelve or fifteen hundred pounds in the bank, or the Three Percents, would help them along their ways."
"Why go to all that trouble, when Phineas could just sell it to the Trenchers, and Burgess could be landed right away?" Lewrie fumed, getting to his feet to stamp down the length of the gallery, shouting back over his shoulder before he turned to clomp angrily back to his father. "No matter how land-proud Phineas Chiswick is, he sold to you! First time in living memory, hereabouts, that. Like to've made local folk go into fits, it did! Thought he'd gone mad as a hatter!"
"He'd had a bad investment or two, crop prices were down, and he needed the money perishin' bad," Sir Hugo explained with a shrug. "Not his best land, you'll note. Too hilly to plow, too wooded, and thinner soil. Don't make tuppence from workin' this land, son, just barely break even. It's ownin' this much land, the house and my view is what matters t'me. Be the same for Burgess, long as he's in the Army. A pleasant country seat, that's all."
"… that the Trenchers could buy, then give to Burgess as a weddin' present, and the deal's done, straightaway," Lewrie fumed, rocking on the balls of his feet and feeling like he wanted to hit something or kick furniture. Remembering how Phineas Chiswick had turfed out that sheeper tenant who'd had the place before he and Caroline had returned from the Bahamas in '89, and had needed a place to live… close to the bosom of her family, ha!
"Bugger Phineas Chiswick!" Lewrie growled. "Bugger Governour and bugger Burgess, too, if he hasn't the nutmegs' t'spea
k with me about it! Just damn my eyes!"
"Bugger 'em all, aye," his father inexplicably hooted, laughing heartily. "No matter how they wish it, though, me son, they can't run ye outta the shire. Hark ye…
"Shift yer traps an' furnishin's up here to Dun Roman, and this will be yer new country seat," Sir Hugo schemed with a wry little grin. "They might think ye'll end up in London, at the Madeira Club, but yer children can consider this their new home whilst yer at sea, and ye'll be able t'come home and be up their noses 'til the Last Trump. When I go, you're heir t'twice as many acres as yer old place, and, do I not squander all the loot I brought back from India, you and yours'll sit in deep clover, haw haw! They'll never be rid o' ye!"
Lewrie thought that over hard, sitting back down in his chair and taking a long sip of the cool tea, considering how much "dear Uncle Phineas" might have to shell out to get him out. The house they'd run up had cost eight hundred pounds in 1789, and was surely worth more now. The old wattle-and-daub barn had been torn down before it collapsed or the rats ate it, and a new stone-and-wood barn had replaced it. The brick-and-stone stables and coach-house, the silage tower, had gotten added the next year. There were good horses for the team, and saddle horses; he'd keep those at his father's, but the rest of the livestock could go with the land. With no more rents owing at each Quarterly Assizes, and more money in the bank…!
Lewrie sat back in his chair and began to grin.
"Ye see?" Sir Hugo cajoled.
"Onliest problem, though, is that the children won't have their home any longer," Lewrie mused. "Where they were born and grew up. Oh, the boys… they love comin' up here t'your place, so I don't imagine it'd pain them too sore… perhaps Sewallis more than Hugh. It will be Charlotte who'll take it worse. Hard as she took losin' her mother, t'lose our old house, too, well… she'd never forgive me for that, on top of all that Governour's put in her head."
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