“Aye,” Lewrie agreed, “then, once settled, I thought I’d ride down to the country … fetch back a few things. Try to settle things with Charlotte.”
“Hmphf!” Sir Hugo said with a snort. “That should be amusing to see. Will you give in to Governour’s idea of givin’ the little minx a London Season?”
“’Fraid I’ll have to,” Lewrie told him. “Next year, perhaps … and increase her dowry, too. Maybe ‘dot’ her with two hundred pounds per annum … and a decent allowance for hats and dresses so she can make a good show. Then, she might stop accusin’ me of gettin’ her mother murdered by the French.”
“Haw!” Sir Hugo barked. “That may prove t’be a task worthy of Hercules, my lad. There’s been too much bile spilled in her ears by Governour, the late Phineas Chiswick … the ill-tempered miser, and, all those anonymous letters her mother got about your overseas dalliances … even the sly poison I expect that Harry Embleton invented for spite, for Charlotte to be mollified. Come to think on it, your repute in Anglesgreen ain’t of the best. There’s quite a few there who despise you worse than cold, boiled mutton.”
After a long moment with his head cocked over, Sir Hugo’s face lit up in a rather evil grin as he announced, “By God, for what it’s worth, I might coach down with you … just to see the show, haw haw! God knows I’ve tried to talk the girl out of her pets, but … in for the penny, in for the pound, what?”
“Oh,” Lewrie coolly commented at that offer, assured once again that his only daughter would always be the bane of his existence, and a spiteful one at that. “How … jolly.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Ah, welcome back, sor!” Cox’n Liam Desmond gladly said after a knock or two on the house door. “Good trip to the country, was it, sor?”
“Not bad, considerin’,” Lewrie answered as he entered his new foyer, shedding his wide-brimmed country hat, walking-stick, and light summer overcoat. The weather at Anglesgreen had been all that anyone could ask for, though a sullen, misty rain had set in round Guildford on the return journey. “Will Cony at the Old Ploughman sends his best respects to you, by the way. And so does Mistress Abigail.”
“Oh, did she, sor?” Desmond said, beaming. In past visits, Liam Desmond and the perky brunette waitress at Will Cony’s establishment had struck up a pleasing, flirtatious relationship. “Sorry I missed going down with you this time.”
“Everything in order here, Desmond?” Lewrie asked as his father came in, so Lewrie got a brief report as Desmond went to take Sir Hugo’s things and hang them up.
“Been nice and quiet, sor,” Desmond told him, “and Yeovill’s had us fed right to the gills.”
“Speaking of,” Lewrie told him, “we fetched back a brace of cured hams, and a barrel of the Old Ploughman’s best summer ale. Oh, and I’ve a chest to be brought in from the coach.”
“I’ll send Deavers and Dasher for all of it, sor,” Desmond promised.
“Well, come in and let me show you round, Father,” Lewrie bade. “Here’s the front parlour.”
“You could use some better furnishings than your old ship-board things,” Sir Hugo said with a deprecating sniff as he paced round the room, “and some books either side of the hearth’d not go amiss. What is this tile in the fireplace?”
“Glazed tile throws back more heat than bare brick,” Lewrie assured him, “or so I was informed. Dining room through here.”
His side-board, wine cabinet, and eight-place table and chairs did go a long way to make a presentable showing, though years of use aboard ship, and being struck below to the orlop when Quarters was announced had taken its toll by way of dents and scars.
The morning room in back now had a four-place table, another side-board, and not much else, and Sir Hugo was more interested in the view of the back garden and stables. “Ye need drapes,” he decided.
“Tell me about it,” Lewrie said with a groan. “Yet another expense. The drawing room abovestairs is much nicer,” he promised.
It was, and Sir Hugo even sounded impressed. The teal paint scheme was now nicely set off with mahoghany settees, chairs, and side-tables, upholstered in black, gold, and pale tan striped cloth, with a Turkey carpet in buff, blue, and gold. There were a pair of wing-back chairs and a padded bench in front of the fireplace, and along the window side of the room there were more tables, and some white-painted side-chairs upholstered in gold-tinted cloth.
“Yonder, there’s room for an office and study, library, whatever,” Lewrie pointed out. “I’ve nothing t’put in there at the moment, but…”
“Quite presentable, I must say,” Sir Hugo said in scant praise. “That scamp, Chute, did you proud. Seems a shame you’d leave it all behind, do you get a new ship.”
“I might keep a piece or two,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “Will you take some tea?”
“Yes, I will,” his father agreed, quite amiably. “Tea, with a dollop of brandy. What’s back yonder?” he asked, going to the hall and looking “aft”. And Lewrie had to show him the bed-chamber that he had furnished, and the others that remained bare. For his own sleeping space, Lewrie had opted for one of the back rooms with a window looking down at the garden and stables, which Sir Hugo thought a good choice, away from the rattle and clatter of coaches and cart traffic from the street, though once again suggesting that some good, thick, and sound-deadening drapes were needed, the sooner the better, especially if the seasons lapsed into Fall, and its coolness.
They settled into the wing-back chairs either side of the fireplace as the requested tea service arrived, along with a bottle of brandy, Lewrie apologising that it was Spanish, not French.
“Hmm, red and gold stripes aren’t that much amiss,” Sir Hugo said, thumping one upholstered arm of his chair once he had creamed, sugared, and laced his tea with a large dollop of the brandy. “Sets the room off, in a way.”
“None o’ my doin’, I’ll admit,” Lewrie said with a laugh. “I let Clotworthy do the choosin’ and matchin’. He has an eye.”
“Ye’ll be needin’ maids.” Sir Hugo owlishly peered about, and ran a finger along the top of the tea table, finding a fine film of dust in the short time that the furniture had arrived.
“Aye, I know,” Lewrie said with a sigh. “I’m thinking of hiring old and ugly ones.”
“Whyever’d ye do a thing like that?” Sir Hugo gasped.
“Four sailors and a boy, fresh from the sea, who haven’t even sniffed a fetchin’ young woman in a month o’ Sundays?” Lewrie scowled, “I take on pretty ones, and it’d be an Out of Discipline orgy, and I’d be out twenty, thirty pounds for every girl who turns up pregnant.”
“Well, there is that,” Sir Hugo gruffly admitted. “Damn my eyes, ye cost me enough for the ones you topped, before you went to sea, hah!”
“It was only the two,” Lewrie grumbled, crossing his legs.
“At least twenty-odd pounds went a lot further then than it does now,” Sir Hugo said, slightly amused. “Twenty pounds, and up the road to the next parish, so the mort don’t end up on the local Poor’s Rate, haw!”
“How much does it cost you, now, hey?” Lewrie teased, unable to resist doing so.
“For your information, my maids are decorative, and amusing,” Sir Hugo insisted, “but taboo. If I feel risible, which I still do, damn yer eyes, there are ladies of the commercial persuasion outside my house upon whom I may call. King’s Place, for instance, just round the corner near Saint James’s Palace … there are at least five very fine brothels in one short street. Fifteen guineas for ‘all night in’, with wine and supper extra. Quiet, most discreet, and elegantly furnished. The Duke of Queensbury goes there, even if he is pushing eighty years or more. Hah! Lord Q of Piccadilly, better known as ‘Lord Fumble’, the poor, old lecher. I ain’t in his condition, yet, thankee very much!”
“Quite handy, too,” Lewrie sniggered. “Why, you could stroll there, hire an anonymous hackney driver. Feelin’ peckish?” Lewrie asked of a sudden as he felt the first pangs of
hunger. “Would you care to stay for supper? Your cooks, here or at Anglesgreen, never allowed my man, Yeovill, to show his skills. He sets a toothsome table.”
“Hmm, tempting, but no,” Sir Hugo declined after a long moment, and poured himself another heavily-laced cup of tea. “Some other time, perhaps. Our long coach rides has rattled me about so badly that all I wish is a nap at my house, and a late collation.”
And, after a third cup of brandied tea, Lewrie’s father creaked to his feet to take his leave, off-handedly congratulated him, again, on the house and its decor as he donned his own light duster coat, hat, and gathered up his walking-stick. A last reminder about draperies and a suggestion about the best hiring agency for chamber maids, and he was off in his coach, all but setting Lewrie fresh tasks for the morrow.
“Another pot o’ tea, sor?” Desmond asked once Lewrie was back in the drawing room.
“I think not, Desmond,” Lewrie decided. “I’ve had enough.”
“Gettin’ on for ev’nin’, sor,” Desmond said, gathering up the tea service and tray. “I’ll see t’lightin’ some candles. And with this steady drizzle, d’ye think we should light some fires t’take the damp off the air?”
“Aye, good idea,” Lewrie agreed, “and we’ll find out if the landlord did have the swifts clean ’em, and if they draw well, as Mister Penneworth swore they do.”
“Aye, sor,” Desmond said. “I’ll see t’that, directly.”
“Desmond?” Lewrie asked before he left the room. “How does it feel, turnin’ butler for a time, ’stead o’ Cox’n?”
“Oh, tolerable, sor,” Desmond said with a grin, “’til we can get back t’sea, that is. Don’t know as I’d much care for it, if it lasts too long, though, sor. Seems … un-natural like.”
“Well, pray God that we hear from Admiralty before the Summer’s out,” Lewrie told him, sharing his father’s weariness and making his way to his bed-chamber to pull off his boots and don a comfortable old pair of shoes as Deavers and Dasher tramped about with buckets of coal, kindling, and tinder, and sparking flint starters to light candles, all of which put Lewrie in mind of how much several hundredweight of coal had cost, and how many gross of beeswax candles he had had to purchase, even for the servants’ quarters, instead of cheaper tallow candles that smoked and stank of sheep fat. Next day, he’d be at the mercy of some mercer or draper with their fat books of fabric samples, drapery rods, and their workmen underfoot to hang it all, all that and a parade of applicants from a domestic registry seeking employment as maids in all their various stations, from scullery maid to maid-of-all-work to chamber maids, and at Mid-summer rates, their pay would be anywhere from five to twelve pounds a year, with food, lodging, shoes, and clothing all provided, and …
Life at sea is so much cheaper, he despondently thought; and, the Navy paid me to live it! I need a drink, a stiff one!
* * *
He watched dusk settle over Dover Street, and a light, misting rain turn into a depressingly steady downpour, from one of the deep window seats of the upper drawing room, which window seat he discovered badly needed some sort of upholstering pad. At least the fireplaces in the rooms where fires had been laid did draw well with no smoke rolling back inside, and the tiles reflected warmth better than naked brick, though he added brass reflector plates to his growing shopping list.
Glum, glum, glum, Lewrie thought; the day, and our jaunt down to the country.
To Lewrie’s lights, time spent at his father’s rambling estate at Anglesgreen was splendid, and in Summer the most enjoyable, but …
Oh, it had started grandly, with the customary stop at the Old Ploughman, where his ex-Bosun, Will Cony, his wife, Maggie, and their brood of boys made them feel welcome with a sumptuous country feast and lashings of fine ale. Sir Hugo’s housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Furlough, with enough warning of their coming, always had the best of the season on the table, and the bounty of the estate cooked to perfection. Then there was the stables the next morning, and Lewrie’s favourite mount, Anson, tossing his head and mane, prancing, pawing, and whickering his delight to see an old friend, and impatient to go for a good, long ride about the property, cross the pastureland, up into the wood lots and the wild forest trails, eager for a brisk canter, and at last a full gallop down to the flatter lands, as if showing off.
His kin, though, and his dealings with them the next day …
His brother-in-law, Governour Chiswick, had once been a lean and hungry panther of a fellow when he’d met him and his younger brother, Burgess, during the American Revolution, but those days were long gone, and Governour had grown stouter and more top-lofty every time Lewrie had seen him since. He’d become estate manager for their late uncle Phineas Chiswick, a grueling, shit-eating job, biding his time ’til the old miser had finally died, and he could inherit. Now, Governour, a man who had been sure that his way was the only way, was the parish Magistrate, and to al1 accounts was a quick-tongued scold and a hard man in love of his power, and his hard-applied version of Law.
Sadly, Governour’s two boys and two girls, once cheerful scamps and playmates with Lewrie’s own children, seemed to have taken lessons from Governour, not his long-suffering and meek wife, Millicent, and had turned just as arrogant and top-lofty as their father, which Lewrie thought was a sorry turn of events, and the ruin of their potential. It would have helped if any of them had shown the slightest curiosity and interest in Lewrie’s recent victory, or how he thought the war was going in Spain and Portugal, but no … they showed more interest in how much that victory had earned him, and what the latest scandalous gossip was going round in London!
For the boys, it was all local horse racing, and questions about the Ascot, the Derby, and the exploits of a horse named Eclipse. With the girls, it was fashion, fashion, fashion, balls and who wore what to church or the local fair, and pity one of the neighbour girls (fill in the blank) who did not show as well as they!
That was tiresome, but not nearly as bad as having to listen to Governour opine on this, opine on that, boast of what punishment he’d awarded some miscreant, his excellent administration of the Law, just as harsh as the parish needed, and why it had taken Lewrie so long to come round to his own way of thinking as to what was to be done with his daughter, Charlotte, and the right way (Governour’s, of course) to brighten the girl’s prospects.
And Charlotte, at last. After Lewrie’s wife, Caroline, had been murdered on that beach near Calais as they’d fled France, and his return to service in early 1803, Charlotte had had nowhere else to go but Governour’s house to live with her cousins. After being steeped so long in spiteful comments, being tutored in how to comport herself and speak a cut above country ways, Lewrie wasn’t sure what to expect from her, but what he got was dis-appointing.
How heart-breaking it was, to clap eyes on her, now almost come to her majority, the spitting image of his dear Caroline, with the same light brown hair, the amber eyes, the same slim and erect form and grace of movement. Even her smile, though rarely seen when in the presence of her father, was Caroline’s! Yet, Charlotte struck him as a stranger who’d deigned to come down to the country from London’s West End for a bit of amusement but had found none worth speaking of.
A snob, aping a peer’s offspring, was who she seemed, and even reminiscing about her brothers’ recent doings, Sewallis’s advance to Passed Midshipman, or Hugh’s adventures and growing naval renown, struck no familial chord, only a sly and arch “I am sure it is to their credit, though it is sad they were led to emulate your career so far from the greater doings of the times, and in such a bleak milieu.”
And, when Lewrie had announced his plans for her future, and the Season she desired to seek a suitable mate, with a dowry increased to two hundred pounds per annum, there was not even a squeal of delight from her, no arms flung round his neck in gratitude, no jouncing on her toes, no.
Charlotte had inclined her head in thanks, with a secret smile more triumphant than glad, as if she and
her uncle Governour had won the argument at long last, and she’d cast him the breathless wide grin of thanks that should have been Lewrie’s! Next Summer, Lewrie cautioned, not this year, late as the Season was, and that was fine with her, for that would give her time to prepare a winning trousseau. She’d played the coy minx when prevailing upon her grandfather, Sir Hugo, for a place to lodge, and her thanks for his grudging agreement was more fulsome by far than any emotion she showed Lewrie!
“Ehm, Cap’m sir?” Tom Dasher said with a clearing of his throat as he entered the drawing room. “Yeovill says yer supper’s ready.”
“Ah?” Lewrie harumphed, glad to be drawn from his bleak study. “Good. I’ll be right down. What’s he prepared?”
“Nice breaded an’ fried fish, sir, haddock, I thinks,” Dasher said with a grin, and a lick of his lips, “could be cod, I don’t know. Green salad, fat chips, an’ a beef steak.”
“Then we’ll all eat well tonight,” Lewrie said with a grin of his own, knowing that Yeovill would have cooked the same for all.
“Ehm, Pettus says the country was nice, sir,” Dasher went on. “Never been, meself, but he was goin’ on about it. Ya have a good time, beg pardon fer askin’, sir?”
“Oh, just bloody jolly, Dasher,” Lewrie gravelled, “Just damned jolly!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lewrie got his “high ramble” with Clotworthy Chute and his other old school chum, Viscount Peter Rushton, treating them to a fine supper at his favourite restaurant in Savoy Street just off the Strand by Somerset House and an evening of high-cockalorum at the Cocoa Tree to dabble at the gaming tables in the Long Rooms.
Peter had been an Honourable at Harrow, and after expulsion he had done his younger-son stint in the 17th Light Dragoons, inheriting his Barony when his elder brother had been carried off by a made dish that his affianced had prepared to show that she could cook as good as any hired cook, though her Frenchifed sauce had sat too long and gone bad. Peter had become Viscount when his father passed over, and was now in Lord’s, where his rare speeches now and then even made sense!
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