King, Ship, and Sword

by Dewey Lambdin

  He had you, too! Charité wryly realised, and, for but a brief second, almost felt a pang of . . . dare she call it jealousy?

  “I may help you select a scent, mademoiselle?” Phoebe Aretino asked, back to business. “Something new to delight your charming young man? More of a scent you purchased before?”

  On the streets outside, Caroline Lewrie set a hectic, furious pace along the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs, to turn south cross traffic down the east side of the Palais Égalité to return to the Rue Honoré. Her apple-cheeked maid, Marianne, puffed along in her wake, as did her guide, Jean-Joseph, who took the kerb side to protect her gown from the muck thrown up from carriage wheels.

  “Madame Lewrie, I do not understand,” he said. “La Contessa’s is the most exclusive . . . nowhere else in Paris is there such a variety. . . . Did she somehow give offence? If so, my pardons to you for taking you there, but . . .” Jean-Joseph had not walked all that fast since his last forced marches into Savoia in ’97.

  “I know of her,” Caroline snapped. “Until you named her, I did not make the connexion.” Under her breath, she added, “The baggage!”

  Oh ho! Jean-Joseph intuited, carefully hiding a smirk as he fell behind her a step to mask his amusement. Capitaine Lewrie is un chaud lapin, the hot rabbit? Mon Dieu, he ‘dipped his biscuit’ in La Contessa? Oh, I see! The lucky shit! Before or after he marries, hmm? Then, with a Gallic shrug and an urge to whistle gaily, he wryly thought, During, hawn hawn!

  “Fabrics, Jean, the best!” Caroline huffed. “Then dressmakers, milliners, everything!”

  Oh, this will cost M’sieur Lewrie dear, Jean-Joseph gleefully thought, all but rubbing his hands with joy over how much she would be spending with his friends, and how large his kick-back would be.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Before it was re-established, the British Embassy had been in French hands for several years, from 1793 ’til 1802, and had not been treated well. It had an odour of dirty feet and old socks, of barrack farts and sweat, as if troops of the Garde Nationale had been garrisoned there. Effort had been expended to clean it up and make it grand once more, but it was a continuing process. After announcing himself and the reason for his call, Lewrie had cooled his heels in the baroque lower lobby for an hour or better, before some “catch-fart” flunky saw him abovestairs to the offices of Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton, who held the odd title of Chargé d’Affaires, which could have meant anything. Lewrie had met a few people who parted their last names, and had come away with a less than favourable impression . . . one reenforced by his first sight of the fellow. Sir Anthony was a wispy young fellow, at least ten or twelve years Lewrie’s junior, with pale skin and a stylish thick head of pale blond hair, poetically curled on top, sides, and nape, but brushed forward over his forehead, his long sideburns brushed forward towards his cheeks, as well. He sported stylish suitings, too, it went without saying, in the latest French cut, with upstanding shirt collars.

  “Captain Alan Lewrie, so honoured t’meet you, sir,” Sir Anthony enthused as he offered a hand to be shaken, one so limp once taken in hand that Lewrie might as well have been shaking a dead fish. “Followed your trial last year, don’t ye know . . . capital doings, capital, hah!”

  With about as much true enthusiasm as a clench-jawed Oxonian of “the Quality” ever allowed out in Publick, Lewrie took note.

  “Now, what is it you wish to do, Captain Lewrie? Meet Bonaparte? Sorry, but . . . that would be impossible, it just isn’t done, old chap,” Sir Anthony pooh-poohed.

  “A rencontre with Bonaparte isn’t necessary,” Lewrie told him. “Didn’t exactly enjoy the first, anyway. The point is . . . I’ve several swords, surrendered by French naval captains, and I’d like t’return ’em to their owners, or their heirs. In exchange, Bonaparte does have one of my old swords . . . my very first. Nothin’ grand about it, but . . . it is dear t’me. Gifted me just before I gained my lieutenancy, d’ye see.”

  “You, erm . . . kept surrendered swords, sir?” Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton asked, seeming tremulously appalled. “I thought the customary usage was to refuse, and allow the surrendee to maintain possession of his . . . honour, sir.”

  “It us’lly is . . . are they alive t’take ’em back,” Lewrie said, crossing his legs at sublime ease in a chair cross the desk from the slim diplomat. “Most . . . weren’t,” he added with a shrug and a grin.

  “I see,” Sir Anthony said with a barely imperceptible gulp.

  “Something could be arranged ’twixt me and their Admiralty . . . their Ministry of Marine, or whatever they call it?” Lewrie asked. “I didn’t think just bargin’ in on my own would be a good idea. In the spirit of our newfound peace, though . . .”

  “Ah, yayss, hmm,” Paisley-Templeton drawled, head cocked to one side in sudden thought, then brightened considerably. “Peace! That’s the thing, is it not, Captain Lewrie? Hmm. You will take coffee, or tea, sir? And, will, pray, excuse me for a few moments whilst I consult with my superiors?”

  That few moments turned into two cups of very good coffee, one trip down the hall to the “necessary” to pump his bilges, and a third cup before Paisley-Templeton returned.

  “Consider this, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Anthony said with genuine enthusiasm, hands rising to frame a stage like a proscenium arch. “A levee in the Tuileries Palace . . . music, champagne, French chittering and flirting . . . the First Consul, General Napoleon Bonaparte, is there with his cabinet, his coterie. You are presented to him and perhaps to his wife, Josephine, by my superior . . . or one of his representatives, hmm?”

  Like yerself, d’ye mean, Lewrie sarcastically thought, even as he kept his phyz sobre and nodded sagaciously; goin’ up in the world like a Montgolfier balloon, do ye hope?

  “Bonaparte . . . forewarned through his Foreign Minister, M’sieur Talleyrand,” Sir Anthony speculated on, “will be prepared to accept the delivery of your captured swords. With enough forewarning, perhaps he will be able to find your sword.

  “Then, sir! Then, with hundreds of people looking on, you and he will make a formal exchange,” Sir Anthony fantasised. “Your . . . how many? Five, good ho, five. Your five swords presented to him, then . . . after some kind and sincere words shared, some smiles ’twixt warriors . . . he will return to you your old sword . . . or one suitable enough to the occasion in value and style to satisfy you,” Sir Anthony tossed off as if it was no matter. “Gad, what a place of honour that’ll have in your house, Captain Lewrie! Yours, or a proper replacement, from the hand of Bonaparte, why . . . one could dine out on that for years, ha ha!”

  “Hold on a bit, sir,” Lewrie said with a gawp. “I’m t’meet the Corsican tyrant? Glad-hand the bastard?”

  Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton visibly shuddered and pouted.

  “Now, Captain Lewrie . . . in the interests of continental peace and goodwill, surely you could find more . . . charitable expressions,” he chid Lewrie. “Now he’s First Consul, perhaps for life it is lately rumoured, and so involved with a sweeping reform of France’s legal system, its roads, canals, harbours, and civic improvements, standardising its currency and all, could you not, perhaps, give Bonaparte the benefit of the doubt? Think of him as a great, new-come man?”

  “Don’t know . . . seems a bit theatrical t’me,” Lewrie dubiously replied, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “But . . . long as I get my old sword back, I s’pose I could play along.”

  “That’s the spirit, Captain Lewrie!” Sir Anthony cheered. “Now, you must give me all the particulars about your old sword.”

  “Should’ve brought my dress uniform, d’ye think, sir?” Lewrie asked.

  “Good heavens, no, sir!” Paisley-Templeton gasped, about ready to shudder again. “General Bonaparte usually dons red velvet suitings for formal levees . . . most un-military. The sight of an officer from a branch of his recent opponents in uniform might be . . . insulting, my superior believes. Something new, stylish . . . uhm, might I give you the name of my tailor here
in Paris, sir?” Sir Anthony enquired, with an equally dubious expression as he looked Lewrie’s suit up and down.

  “Make my wife happy,” Lewrie mused aloud. “A reason to purchase court clothing, hey?”

  “You and your wife together, sir? That would be even more pacific,” Paisley-Templeton gushed. “Dare she take wine with Josephine? Well, perhaps that might be a bit of a stretch, but . . . as to what the old sword looks like, then, Captain Lewrie?”

  “It was a hanger, patterned on a French infantry sabre-briquet. Royal blue scabbard and sharkskin grip, the grip bound in silver wire, with silver throat, drag, and . . .”

  An hour later, and Lewrie was at a tailor’s, not the one recommended by Paisley-Templeton, but the one that Jean-Joseph had named. It didn’t begin well, for the elderly tailor had very little English, Lewrie was nigh-incomprehensible in French, and his manservant, Jules, was not as bilingual as he’d been touted to be.

  Before negotiations broke completely down, another customer and one of the tailor’s journeyman assistants emerged from a change-room at the back of the shop, and rescue was at hand . . . of a sort.

  “Stap me! I declare if it is not Captain Lewrie, to the life, haw haw!” the fellow brayed in an Oxonian accent, and an inane titter.

  “Sir . . . Poult . . . Pulteney?” Lewrie responded, groping for the fellow’s last name and only coming up with “Thing-Gummy.” “Yer servant, sir, and I thankee for your kindly assistance ’board the packet.”

  “Pulteney Plumb, and your servant, Captain Lewrie,” the foppish man said back, making a flourished, showy “leg.” “I trust your lovely wife recovered from the mal de mere, sir? Ha?”

  “Completely, Sir Pulteney, thankee for asking,” Lewrie replied. “Those sweet ginger pastilles did the trick. Should I ever command a crew of pressed hands again, a case or two of ’em in the Surgeon’s apothecaries might prove useful, hey?”

  “Might Admiralty reimburse you for them, though, haw haw?” Sir Pulteney gaily countered. “A parsimonious lot, officialdom.”

  “Indeed,” Lewrie agreed, with a wry roll of his eyes.

  “You seek new suitings, Captain Lewrie?” Sir Pulteney asked as he came closer to look Lewrie’s current suit up and down. “Then you have come to one of the finest establishments in Paris, one which it was my utter delight to patronise in the years before the Revolution. You see?” Sir Pulteney spun himself slowly round most theatrically, modelling the new suit he was having fitted, and indeed it was a marvel to behold, of subtle grey and black striped watered silk over a burgundy satin waist-coat.

  Light on his feet . . . ain’t he, Lewrie thought as Sir Pulteney preened. Sir Pulteney Plumb was perhaps an inch taller than Lewrie’s five feet nine, still of a trim, active build for a man in his late fourties (or so Lewrie judged him), broad in the chest and shoulders without appearing too “common” or “beef to the heel.”

  “Cut to the Tee, haw haw!” Sir Pulteney crowed. “Old Jacques, mon vieux, you have done it again! Félicitations!” he congratulated the master tailor, kissing his fingers in his direction, then, in fluent French, urging the fellow to emigrate to London, where he could make an even greater, new fortune . . . at least that was the gist Lewrie got from it. Old Jacques ate it up like plum duff.

  “Something for our newfound friend, here, Jacques? I dare say you’d look particularly dashing in something maroon, or burgundy . . .’less you’d prefer something more . . . everyday, what? Perhaps you and your lady wife envision some formal occasion whilst in Paris, in which case ‘dashing’ would be required?”

  “M’sieur Sir Pulteney ees ze très élégante, hein?” the master tailor simpered to Lewrie.

  Christ, ain’t he just! Lewrie silently agreed.

  “An occasion, aye, Sir Pulteney,” Lewrie informed him, telling him of those swords he wished to exchange. “In short, one thing led to another, and we’re down for some theatrical flummery at a levee at the Tuileries Palace with Bonaparte,” he said with a wry shrug.

  “Presented to the First Consul of France? Begad, sir, what an honour! Odd’s Blood, haw haw!” Sir Pulteney brayed, tossing his head back and to one side to emit another of his donkey-bray laughs. “Now we simply must array you in the very finest!”

  There was a palaver ’twixt Sir Pulteney and the master tailor to explain how fine a suit would be necessary.

  “Jacques cautions that you must not out-shine the First Consul in splendour, Captain Lewrie,” Sir Pulteney Plumb said with a cautionary wag of a long aristocratic finger, “and that Bonaparte is fond of his general’s uniform, or red velvet, with white silk stockings and a pair of red Moroccan slippers . . . fellow caught the Turkish and Mameluke ‘fashion pox’ somethin’ horrid during his Egyptian campaign. . . . Even fetched back a Muslim manservant, haw haw! Or sometimes he will don the plainest uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs. Yayss,” Sir Pulteney softily speculated as he paced a quick orbit round Lewrie, “you would be splendid, but not too splendid, in something dark red. Vite, vite, Jacques. Maroons and burgundies!”

  Is he a Clotworthy Chute, a Jean-Joseph, a Captain Sharp? he had to ask himself as assistants came with tapes to take his measure, and his dimensions were carefully noted in a ledger, should Lewrie be a return customer. “Hang the cost, Begad!” from Sir Pulteney, “Lud, a once in a lifetime occasion, haw haw!”

  Fabrics were fetched, stroked, draped over his shoulders to display how a fine broadcloth wool would mould to him; how watered silks or embroidered and figured satins might complement the basic colour motif. Not knowing just how he’d been cossetted into it, Lewrie ended with all the makings for three suits. Hang the cost, indeed!

  There would be a dark-red doubled-breasted tail-coat with a wide collar and lapels, snug matching trousers, and an electric blue waist-coat in moiré silk beneath. There would be a grey single-breast coat with a stand-and-fall collar trimmed in electric blue satin that could be paired to the first waist-coat, or a second one in maroon satin. There would be a third, a black single-breasted coat matched with a cream-coloured embroidered waist-coat, which could be mated with those grey trousers or any old pair of black or buff breeches.

  Not to mention the hats, new silk hosiery, elaborately laced silk shirts Sir Pulteney thought essential. The gloves or lace jabots, the new-fangled Croatian cravats and various coloured neck-stocks without which a proper gentleman would be deemed half-dressed, or only half finished.

  I’ll need a new leather portmanteau t’pack away all this bumf, Lewrie told himself, wondering how much that’d cost him, on top of all this? Appointments were made for further fittings before the delivery of the finished togs.

  Sir Pulteney Plumb slightly made up for the pained look on Alan Lewrie’s face as he goggled over the reckoning, offering to treat him to a late mid-day meal and extending an invitation for Lewrie and his wife to sup with them that evening, his treat, then take in a performance at the Comédie Française, where, Sir Pulteney grandly imformed him, his lady-wife, Imogene—Knew it was somethin’ starts with I! Lewrie told himself—had once “trod the boards” as a noted actress of some renown.

  “French, o’ course, Begad!” Sir Pulteney brayed, tittering over the fact. “Dash it, imagine an English gel on a Parisian stage, haw haw haw!”

  A comedy, Lewrie thought, that’ll give the fop genuine call for that God-awful laugh o’ his!

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Caroline Lewrie was waiting, rather impatiently, in their rented suite of rooms for her husband to arrive; pacing, frowning, rehearsing the wrath she would launch as soon as the faithless hound stepped into the parlour. Her purchases, those that could be carried away the same day, she had left scattered on settees, chairs, and table tops—pelts of her “kills,” the expensive items that did not even come near to mollifying the rebirth of her anger after meeting Phoebe Aretino, his old mistress, and seeing her in the flesh! And to be so pretty and petite and young-looking, to boot, well!

  “I’m home, dear!” Lewrie gaily called ou
t, whipping his old hat at a row of pegs by the armoire, infuriatingly scoring a direct hit and hanging it up on the first try. “Have fun shopping, Caroline? Well, there may be need for a lot more of it, d’ye see—”

  “I met an old friend of yours, today . . . husband!” she fumed.

  “Did ye now? I say, that looks expensive, all that . . . stuff,” Lewrie blathered on. “We’ve some formal ‘to-do’s’ in our future. How would ye like t’meet Napoleon Bonaparte himself? The famous Josephine, too, most-like. And, we’re invited to supper and the Comédie Française tonight. Recall Sir Pulteney Plumb and his lady, Imogene, from the packet? With the ginger pastilles? Ran into him at a tailor’s . . . ,” Lewrie said, grinning as he went to her, prepared to dance her round the room with his news.

  “I said I . . . what?” said Caroline, flummoxed. “Napoleon Bonaparte? When?”

  “Don’t know yet, but our Embassy’ll be sendin’ round an invitation to a levee at the Tuileries Palace in a few days,” Lewrie cheerfully explained. “Those swords o’ mine . . .’stead of an informal hand-over at their Ministry of Marine, it’s got turned into a raree-show. Ye should see the bill from the tailor’s t’get me suited proper for it. What’s the current rate of exchange, francs to pounds, I wonder?”

  “You just . . . just barge in here, full of yourself, and spring this upon me, like a Jack-in-the-Box?” Caroline blurted, her fury now re-directed on a fresh cause. “You expect me to be presentable at the theatre at the drop of your . . . hat?”

  “Should I have sent you a note first?” Lewrie asked, confused.

  “The theatre, tonight?” Caroline continued to rant, pacing the salon. “In one of my old rags? Why . . . ! Sir Pulteney Plumb and Lady Imogene, I vaguely recall . . . Oh! That lofty couple? They were, as I recall, extremely well-dressed . . . in the height of fashion. Lord, I might be mistaken for their maid-servant in comparison! Are they anyone?”