Hostile Shores (15 page)

It ain’t like we’re
married
or anything like that,
Lewrie told himself, his mood becoming a tad anxious;
I’ve not even given her “a packet o’ pins” as promise for
anything
! By God, though, if she
ever
speaks t’me after this, I’ll get an
ugly
ear full!

He considered hiring a coach that instant and dashing back to Portsmouth, no matter the perils of a night-time journey, but … no. He had to stay in London, bide close to the Madeira Club ’til he got word from Admiralty, whichever way that decision would go.

A
damn
good night t’get blind drunk!
he concluded with a sigh, and waved his empty glass at the steward for a top-up.

*   *   *

Needless to say, his next morning was more than a tad blurry. After breakfast, and nigh an entire pot of hot, black coffee, Lewrie spent his time writing letters. Firstly, he penned a grovelling “forgive me” to Lydia to her Grosvenor Street house, explaining as best he was able why he had had to dash off. With no news from Admiralty, he then wrote letters to his sons, Sewallis and Hugh, who were at sea, Sewallis still most-like on the French blockade, and Hugh and his ship, as he’d learned, with Nelson in pursuit of that Frog Admiral Villeneuve and his large French fleet, its location still unknown.

With nothing
else
to do, and admittedly hitting his stride with his scribbling, Lewrie wrote chatty letters to his former brother-in-law Burgess Chiswick and his wife, Theodora, the brother-in-law he liked. He wrote to the other one, Governour, who despised him, and his wife, Millicent, again to be sociable. He wrote a separate letter to his daughter, Charlotte, who resided with Governour and Millicent, though he had no idea if she would even read it, or if Governour would even allow her to see it. Then came his former ward, Sophie de Maubeuge, now Mrs. Anthony Langlie. Sophie and his former First Officer in the
Proteus
frigate were the parents of at least two children by now, and were the most pleasant of his correspondents, were Lewrie given his “d’ruthers”.

With
still
no word from Mr. Marsden by noon, and with his appetite stifled by the odd rumbles engendered from the night before, he even went so far as to write to Sir Malcolm Shockley and his wife, the twitter-brained Lucy. Back when Lewrie and she had been teens, he’d been head-over-heels with her, but she
had
been a Beauman, of the Jamaican Beaumans, and nothing good could have ever come from
that
clan.

He paused to wonder if Lucy was still slipping under the sheets with other men and gulling poor, honest, and upright Sir Malcolm into believing her faithfulness!

Lewrie penned shorter notes to Peter Rushton, now Viscount Draywick after inheriting his childless uncle’s title; and his younger brother, Harold, who had inherited their father’s title of Baron Staughton when Peter had been elevated upwards. Harold, quite unlike his older brother, was level-headed and rather shrewd, when sober at least, and good company when not. Lewrie hadn’t seen him in years, but Peter had gotten Harold a well-paying government post under the Secretary of State at War, where he wielded considerable influence. One never knew who might come in handy when it came to patronage and influence! Lewrie even wrote another, shorter, letter to another old school chum, that nefarious “Captain Sharp”, Clotworthy Chute, who was rumoured to have turned honest and was now big in the antiques trade. Lewrie carefully stressed that he was in town a little time … too short a time for Clotworthy to hit him up for a loan!

By two in the afternoon, and with still no letter for him at the front desk, Lewrie betook himself on a stroll, threading his way through the pedestrian throngs of Wigmore Street, West to Baker Street, then South to the corner of Oxford Street and one of his favourite taverns, the Admiral Boscawen, where he tentatively supped on sliced roast beef, pease pudding, potato hash, and gravy, and was delighted to discover that what
went
down would
stay
down, aided along by two pints of ale.

Not quite as bleary as before, Lewrie returned to the Madeira Club, where he
yet
had no mail, and whiled away the rest of the afternoon by scribbling notes to his old Cox’n, Will Cony, who now owned the Olde Ploughman in Anglesgreen; to his former cabin steward, Aspinall, who was now a published author here in London; and, frankly, got so bored that he even penned letters to his Lewrie cousins at Wheddon Cross in Devonshire, near Exeter.

By the time he had folded, waxed, and sealed the last letter, it was nigh five o’clock, and the club’s stewards and servants were circulating to stoke up the fireplaces and light more candles to welcome the club’s members back from their days on the town. That passable Spanish brandy appeared on a sideboard.

Pettus made his appearance, yawning and shrugging his clothing into order, looking as if he had used his free time to good purpose whilst Lewrie had spent the day alone, and had caught up on his sleep.

“Will you be dining out on the town tonight, sir?” Pettus asked.

“Hmm … think not, Pettus,” Lewrie told him after deliberating. Gloster’s Chop House and his favourite-of-all
restaurant
in Savoy Street, were both off the Strand, and either were just too far to go at that hour. “I’ll dine in here. There’s little for you to do for me ’til the morning. Enjoy your idleness,” he said with a smile. “I trust they’re feedin’ ye well, and that your quarters are warm and comfy?”

“Oh, aye, sir, quite pleasant, and they feed extremely well,” Pettus told him, “though I do miss Yeovill’s way with spices and—”

“Pardons, Captain Lewrie,” Lucas, the desk clerk, interrupted, “but a messenger just dropped this off for you, this instant.”

“Aha!” Lewrie exclaimed as Lucas handed him a stiff cream bond letter with a large blob of royal blue sealing wax and the imprint of Admiralty. “Wish me luck, Pettus. Thankee, Lucas.”

He tore it open impatiently, but, once he had it un-folded, he paused and hitched a deep breath, expecting the worst.

“Uhmhmm, ‘directed and required … authorised to make such repairs His Majesty’s Dockyard deems necessary’ …
Hell,
yes!” he cried, thumping his free left hand on the arm of his chair in triumph.

“Good news, sir?” Pettus asked.

“The best, Pettus, the very
best
!” Lewrie told him, laughing. “We’ll be off for Portsmouth at first light. See Lucas to arrange a coach for us …
not
that drunken fool who fetched us up! We have orders for our bottom cleaning, and additional orders for the South Atlantic, soon as we can get the ship back on her own bottom and make sail! Hallelujah!”

“I’ll see to it, directly, sir!” Pettus assured him.

“Something to drink, sir?” a steward asked.

“I think I’ll try the Scottish whisky, this time,” Lewrie said. “That Spanish brandy makes me bilious, haw haw!”

Oh Christ, though,
Lewrie had to think a moment later;
If I’m off to Portsmouth, I’ll miss Lydia
again
!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At such short notice, hiring an elegant coach-and-four for the return to Portsmouth was out of the question, so what Pettus managed to turn up was a weather-beaten and drab coach with cracked or stained glass windows, ratty interior fabrics, and leather bench seats so hard that there might not have been any horse-hair padding left. To make things even worse, the team looked more due the knacker’s yard, maybe even overdue. The coachee was rail thin, taciturn, and sour, but swore that he was of the temperance persuasion, and a Methodist Dissenter.

“And here I’ve thought all this time that Methodists were prone t’leapin’ enthusiasm,” Lewrie chuckled after they rattled away from the Madeira Club’s stoop in the “early-earlies” in a light fog. “It must be the temperance part that makes him as dour as Wilberforce’s crowd.”

“Does he stick with cider instead of ale, sir, perhaps he will cost you less,” Pettus suggested. He was cringing in a corner of the coach’s front bench seat, shrunk up in mortification, looking even more abashed than he had when he’d overlooked Lewrie’s presentation sword. “And, twenty-odd miles on, there will surely be a better team.”

“Assumin’ these beasts
live
long enough t’get to the next posting house,” Lewrie said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes.

“Sorry, sir,” was all that Pettus had to say, in a mutter.

“Oh, worse things happen at sea, I’m told,” Lewrie rejoined in slight mirth. “Do you shuffle over to the starboard side, we can both keep watch for Mistress Lydia’s coach.”

*   *   *

Out in open country beyond London, on the way to Guildford, the traffic thinned out from the nose-to-tail crush of all the waggons and carts and drays bringing goods and produce to town. Even so, a fresh coach came along at least once every two minutes or so. Some were of local origin, light one-horse or two-horse carriages trotting along to carry country folk from one village or hamlet to the next. Every now and then, with a thunder of hooves, the cracking of whips, and the
tara-tara
warnings from the assistant coachees, much larger diligence coaches or regularly scheduled flying “balloon” coaches came dashing toward them with six- or eight-horse teams, swaying and pitching fit to throw passengers and luggage from the cheaper seats on the rooves, barrelling “ram you, damn you” and expecting anyone with the least bit of sense to get right out of their way.

There were young, flashing gentlemen, “all the crack and all the go”, driving their two- and three-horse chariots at similar paces as the passenger coaches, dust or mud flying in their wakes, and flashing past their own shabby coach with shouts of glee over how rapidly they could eat the miles, and how daring they were. Lewrie’s coach was passed by a pair bound South from behind them, two chariots racing wheel-to-wheel like ancient Romans in the Colosseum, and damning Lewrie’s equipage for a “slow-coach” as they careened around them!

Now and then, though rarely, a much grander coach-and-four came trotting toward them, with liveried coachmen in the driver’s box and in the bench above the coach’s rear boot. Most of those coaches bore no family crests on their doors, and those that did went by so quickly that it was hard for Lewrie and Pettus to discern even the colours or the shapes of the crests, and it was a rare coach with painted heraldry that bore a crest large enough to be recognised.

Lewrie tried to recall how large the Stangbourne crest had been and the colour of the coach they’d shared to Sheerness, the one she had taken the last time she’d come down to Portsmouth, and began to wonder if he would recognise it if it sat right in front of him, at full stop! As rich as Lydia and her brother Percy were, they might have more than a dozen carriages and coaches for every occasion!

Assuming that Percy hadn’t gambled them into debtors’ prison in the meantime!

They got to Guildford for a change of horses, and a chance to stretch their legs. The four poor prads were led off to rest and feed, heads hanging low, and as the coachman arranged a fresh team, Lewrie and Pettus had a quick breakfast of bacon strips and cheese on thickly sliced bread with smears of spicy, dark mustard, and pint mugs of ale. When offered, their coachman settled for a hard-boiled egg, toast, and hot tea … without sugar or cream.

“Evidently, cream and sugar are too luxurious for ‘temperance’ people,” Lewrie commented in a whispered chuckle. “God only knows what a cinnamon roll’d do … one bite, and he’d be found in a gutter with crumbs on his face, clutchin’ a bottle o’ rum, weepin’ for bein’ a back-slider!”

Once a slightly more promising team was hitched up, they were off once more, at a slightly better pace this time, for more peering at the passing traffic. They passed the turning for Chiddingfold, the narrow road that led to Anglesgreen and Lewrie’s father’s estate. He wished that he could spare the time to see his daughter, Charlotte, but … no, Lewrie sadly reckoned; that could only turn out stiffly, and badly. He had written her. That would have to be good enough.

*   *   *

A bit North of Liphook, Pettus pulled his head back into the coach to announce, “Here comes another coach-and-four, sir, with liveried coachee and all.”

Lewrie stuck his head out of the lowered door window, peering ahead. What he could see of the approaching coachman’s livery under his opened black great-coat
looked
like the royal blue and white trim that he remembered, the coach was very
much
like the dark green with discreet gilt trim one that Lydia had used in London, and had used to come down to Portsmouth before, and its wheel rims and spokes
appeared
to be the same jaunty canary yellow.

Lewrie leaned further out, half-standing with head and shoulders out the window, looking to see if the passengers were—!

“Lydia!” he bellowed as he espied a woman seated in the middle of the front-facing rear bench seat, a woman with loose and curly hair the colour of old honey. “Lydia Stangbourne! It’s me, Alan!”

“What the Devil?” the female passenger cried back, mouth agape in shock as her coach came level with his and whisked by.

“Driver, draw up!” Lewrie bellowed to their coachman, opening the coach door to hang out and look aft. In his loudest quarterdeck bellow, he shouted, “Lydia, draw up!”

Sure enough, the other coach was being reined in, and he could see Lydia leaning out an opened window. It was she!

“Draw up, did you say, sir?” their dour coachman asked.

“Goddamn right I did! Whoa, stop right now!” Lewrie exclaimed as he kicked the metal folding steps down with a booted foot. Before the coach could come to a full stop, he was jumping down and running back up the road. “Hoy, Lydia, it’s me!” he cried, waving madly.

He got to her coach in a trice and pulled down the door handle to whip it open.

“Good God!” Lydia gasped. “Where did
you
spring from?”

“God called away t’London, a bit after I sent you a letter,” he said, knowing that he was grinning like a loon and not caring if he was or not. He sprang inside her coach, ignoring her goggling maid-servant, and sat beside her. “I sent a note round your house, and got told you’d already left, so I was
hopin’
t’run across you like this,
somewhere
on the road, at any rate … comin’ or goin’, no matter. You look simply … wonderful!”