“Oh Be Q?” Lewrie puzzled.
“For Oh Be Quiet,” Jessica laughed, no longer in a fret over the details, “I have never heard such a loud and insistent cat.”
* * *
At last, all the final details of the wedding and the breakfast were woven together like the patterns of a silk shawl on a loom, and they set off for St. Anselm’s in several hired coaches, everyone turned out in their Sunday best, Pettus in a new suiting à la Beau Brummel with trousers a sobre dark grey, white shirt and waist-coat and a black neck-stock, topped by a gentlemanly narrow-brimmed thimble of a hat. “Gawd, he’s done up like th’ butler of a great house, as fine as wot he’d get on Boxing Day!” Dasher exclaimed when he saw him.
Lucy had chosen fabric of primrose yellow for her wedding gown to be made up at a reputable milliner’s, trimmed with white lace, and a perky new bonnet on her head, and looked lovely.
At Jessica’s insistence, dress uniforms were the order of the day for Lewrie, right down to sash and star, and his medals on ribbons for Camperdown and Saint Vincent, with his presentation sword on his hip. Hugh and Charlie Chenery had gone along with her, too. It was only Sir Hugo who had balked for a while.
“Full mess-dress for a butler’s wedding, hah?” he had barked when Lewrie had gone round to tell him of it, “What’s the world coming to? I know it’s the West End, and your wife wants to make a show of it, but, Christ! I haven’t worn my uniforms since the last Saint George’s Day to the annual Order of The Garter at Windsor Castle!”
“She’s got me in full fig, too,” Lewrie pressed. “Do go along.”
“How exotic does Jessica wish, hey? Fourth Regiment of Foot, the King’s Own, or mess-dress Hindoo kit from the Nineteenth Native Infantry at Calcutta?”
“Oh Lord,” Lewrie recalled from his time in India, and how outlandishly foreign that uniform would look in London. Foreigners in their native attire, ambassadors to boot, could get dunged and mired by the hooting Mob.
“Keep it English, if ye please, father?” Lewrie had pleaded.
It did not help that Sir Hugo’s lips had turned up into an evil leer, and he’d let out an equally sinister laugh. Fortunately for all, he’d shown up in his gleaming private coach in British Army uniform of a Lieutenant-General, and had quite generously offered his equipage to the bride and groom.
* * *
The wedding went off without a hitch, since the Church of England, after several hundred years of practice, had their part down pat. Reverend Chenery could probably have conjoined the bride and groom in his sleep by then, but for Jessica’s sake, he took extra pains with his role, offering up a thoughtful performance. There was only one ring offered, to the bride, as usual. It had been Jessica’s preference that Lewrie agree to a double-ring ceremony, a fact that some officers in the Navy he’d encountered since found extremely odd and laughable.
And yes, on Pettus’s lapel there was the same sort of sprig of rosemary for Fidelity that Lewrie had worn, and there was rosemary in Lucy’s bouquet as well.
Seated in the family pew box, Jessica had seized his hand and held it in her lap as the ceremony began, obviously excited, and when they stood for hymns or prayers, they continued to hold hands, Lewrie now and then leaning his head towards hers as if to touch foreheads, and secretly smile at each other.
Fidelity, well, Lewrie thought, reminiscing; God, I’ve gone a year entire without touchin’ strange quim. Maybe there’s a hex on rosemary, or something. Did it before with Caroline … before a war sent me back t’sea, and temptation. I s’pose I’ll survive it.
* * *
The smaller banquetting hall was ready for them, the place cards were set out to indicate where guests would sit, mingling gentlemen and ladies with servants, which made the house help nervous at first.
Lewrie saw to champagne poured into the correct glasses and rose to propose a toast, wishing everyone a grand day, the happy couple a long and loving life, and everyone a delightful time. The champagne loosened tongues and stiff, nervous backs before the bottles were empty.
He sat at one far end of the long table as host, and Jessica at the other, with the bride and groom taking seats in the centre of the long row of guests, who were now talking to each other freely.
“Aha! Oysters!” Sir Hugo cried as a plate of a dozen was placed before him. “Good ho!” Much slurping followed.
A creamy pea soup showed up, paired with a white wine, followed by pork chops and what vegetable removes were still available this late in season, paired with claret. The main entree was an enormous roast goose with roast potatoes, gravy, and red currant jam. More claret came forth, and laughter was the main sound, by then.
The hired musicians, fiddlers, cello, bass viol, and flutists, played happy airs that made people sway from side to side, wave their wine glasses aloft in time, and some drunker to try to sing along.
For dessert, there were plum puddings doused with a sugary glaze and soaking with brandy sauce, along with a cake that Yeovill had baked and delivered before the wedding. And, of course, champagne went best with the diners’ choice of sweets, lashings of it.
“Where’s the punch?” Margaret, one of the older maids who Lewrie had hired, and not for her looks, shrieked. “Punch, punch, punch!” And the rest took up the cry, stamping feet and fists.
Lewrie had thought of that, too, and an enormous punch bowl was brought out of the kitchens to rest on a smaller table in front of the “happy couple.”
Jessica gave him a stern look from her end of the table, but he just laughed and rose to ladle out two glass cups for Pettus and Lucy.
“I’ll fathom the bowl, I’ll fathom the bowl! Gi-ive me the punch ladle, I’ll fath-om the bowl!” Lewrie sang, if a bit off-key, and the guests took it up.
And, after everyone had partaken, Lewrie called for music for Pettus and Lucy to dance to. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mister and Mistress Pettus! Success to them, and let them have the first dance!”
The musicians struck up “Pleasant and Delightful,” and Pettus and Lucy shyly came round the long table and awkwardly took hands to begin to wheel round each other, for neither had much experience with the studied rounds of a formal ball, but they got into the spirit and shifted to a loose embrace, beaming at each other.
When that tune ended, and everyone applauded, the musicians put their heads together for a moment and urged everyone to dance, starting a livelier tune. Charlie Chenery leaned over the long table and asked little Agnes to dance, Desmond stood up and took Martha by the hand to lead her out to the dance floor, and they both, being Irish, broke into a sort of a jig. Deavers pulled Margaret to her feet and did his best, which looked very much like a hornpipe.
“Whoo-hee!” Hugh shouted and took Madame Pellatan out, though she looked a trifle appalled by such high cockalorum.
“There ye go, there ye go, that’s the way!” Sir Hugo, who had put away more wine than most, rose and clapped his hands and stamped a booted foot in time.
“Gettin’ out of hand?” Lewrie asked Jessica as he went down to her end of the table and offered a hand so she could rise. “Ya said ya wanted it t’be memorable.”
She had to laugh, press a handkerchief to her face, and accept his offer. “Memorable it will be, I suppose. Yes, let’s dance. Show me a jig or a hornpipe, or whatever you sailors call it.”
“Saw people waltz in Paris,” Lewrie suggested. “We might give that a try.”
“Do you know how?” she had to ask.
“Oh, Hell no, but let’s do it, anyway!” he hooted.
“You’re drunk!” Jessica gawped. “Drunk, or daft!”
“I confess to both,” Lewrie laughed, throwing his head back to say, “but only a part of the time.”
A hand on her waist, a hand in the air to place her left hand on his shoulder, taking her right in his left and swooping round in a circle. He’d seen how the French moved their feet at the levée at the Tuileries Palace, but he couldn’t recall, said to the Devil with it, a
nd settled on twirling to his right, slowly moving out onto the dance floor, nearer the musicians. It had been 1802, after all!
“Something faster!” someone shouted at them. “Country dances!”
“Yee-yeep!” Margaret cried.
The clatter of shoes or boots on the wooden floors rose louder than the music. Hugh and Charlie broke off from their partners to go into a contest at the hornpipe, making the women shriek and laugh out loud. Madame Pellatan snuck back to the punch bowl, dipping, ladling, drinking, and fanning herself as if it was a High Summer day in the stuffiness of a small church, her mouth making “Ooh la la” shapes, with a “Morte de ma vie!” and a “Mon Dieu, merde alors!” thrown in.
“Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, please,” the owner of the banquetting hall tried to implore, “some decorum, I beg of you! The wedding party in the next room can hardly converse for the racket! Sir Alan, Sir Alan, can you not control your…”
Liam Desmond, inspired and tipsy, produced his uillean lap-pipes and flung himself sprawling in one of the musicians’ spare chairs and squealed his way into a reel or jig tune.
Martha, the other maid, rasped out a song that had nothing to do with Desmond’s tune, “Whack for the Derry-Oh, there’s whisky in the jar, whee!”
“Sir, if you don’t stop this drunken carousing, I will have to ask you all to leave, this instant!” the owner bellowed. “I will call the constables, and…!”
There was a ceramic crash somewhere as a plate was broken.
“Oh, damn,” Lewrie groaned, and let his wife go. “Avast! Avast, I say! Pipe down, this instant!” and the ruckus faded, the lap-pipes squawked to a halt, the foot-stomping dancers fell silent, and even the hired musicians stopped playing.
“Thank you, Sir Alan,” the owner said, blustering to his side. “I do think it the best thing would be for your party to depart, anyway. For respect for my other patrons. Besides, this room will be used by a poetry society for their dinner, at…” he pulled out his pocket watch, “at noon, in an hour’s time, scarcely enough time for my waiters to clean and re-stage the tables.”
“Hugh? Charlie?” Lewrie called. “It’s time to go. Do hail us some hackneys. Pettus, Lucy, my apologies for your wedding breakfast gettin’ out of hand. I hope we didn’t spoil it for you.”
“Oh, Captain Lewrie,” Pettus replied with a slightly pie-eyed grin, embracing his bride closely, “it was a proper high ramble, and we wouldn’t have missed it for the world. No apology needed.”
“A very merry way to send us off into the world, Sir Alan,” Lucy seconded his opinion, beaming to beat the breeze as she gave her new husband a reassuring hug.
“But, there’s still some punch left,” Margaret dared grumble under her breath.
“No no, I think everyone’s had more than enough,” Lewrie said, “Me included, what? Father, is your coach still outside, and available? Let’s see the Pettuses into it. Any addition to the bill, sir?” he asked the owner.
“Well, there was a dinner plate broken, and a few wine glasses cracked, or lost their stems.”
“Would an additional two pounds cover that?” Lewrie asked as he dug out his wallet for some bank notes.
“Most admirably, Sir Alan,” the owner agreed, taking the notes and stuffing them into his waist-coat pocket. “Uhm, sir … you do not have any other weddings in your future, do you, Sir Alan?”
“Ah, no,” Lewrie told him. “None I know of.”
“Oh, good!” the owner enthused, “but if you do, sir, I suggest, most humbly mind, that you hire another hall?”
“Point taken, sir, point taken,” Lewrie said with a grin.
Hats, coats, bonnets, parasols, and reticules were gathered up as the wedding party, now much mollified, herded out into Old Bond Street to see the Pettuses into Sir Hugo’s coach. Cheers and well wishes arose again as the bride and groom leaned out the door windows to wave back. Hugh and Charlie Chenery had managed to flag down some hackneys, and Reverend Chenery, a bit under an alcoholic weather, his son Charlie, and Madame Pellatan took the first one so they could go to St. Anselm’s manse together.
The maids went into the next one.
“Ah, sir,” Deavers said as they clattered off, “when Pettus and Lucy get to the house, how are they going to get in? Mean t’say, he gave me the front door keys. ’Til we get home, everybody’s going to stand round and wait … and they’re all half-drunk.”
“Ah,” Lewrie replied. “Oops. Damn!”
* * *
“I hope we didn’t scandalise your father,” Lewrie said through the door to the dressing room off their bedchamber as he stripped off his dress uniform to stow away, and put on looser, more casual garb.
“He did look as if he was enjoying himself,” Jessica replied, voice muffled as she changed into a simpler day gown. “Most of the time, I mean. Towards the end, though…” She tittered to herself. The door opened and she went over to her vanity, un-pinning her elegant up-do so she could brush her long, dark, almost-black hair down.
“A waltz, Alan? Really?” she laughed as she brushed.
“Never can tell, it might catch on in England someday,” Lewrie told her as he slipped his feet into a pair of loose, old shoes.
Satisfied that her hair was neatly arranged, Jessica bound it with a blue ribbon, studied herself in the mirror, beamed satisfaction, and rose to go to the window of their bedchamber, which looked out on the back garden and the coach house, now the Pettuses’ lodgings.
“What are you doing?” Lewrie asked.
“Just looking,” Jessica told him. “Wondering what they’re up to.”
“Nosy,” Lewrie chid her with a “Tsk. A peepin’ Tom, are you?”
The upstairs set of rooms above the empty stable and coach house had no windows on the back side, a pair either side of the stairs that led up from the garden, and two that faced the main house. Lewrie had a quick look for himself, but there was no sign of movement from the lodgings, and the new curtains on the windows were drawn. There was a thin skein of smoke from a chimney, though.
“Probably brewin’ themselves some tea,” he surmised.
“Perhaps,” Jessica said, then turned to him, “Or, after all the nervousness of the morning, the ceremony and all, then that breakfast folderol, they’re quite exhausted. We were, remember?”
“Aye, we were,” Lewrie agreed. After their wedding breakfast, they had coached to Sir Hugo’s estate at Anglesgreen for a week of “honeymoon,” and had, despite his wants, fallen into bed late at night and had just slept! “But, they didn’t have that far to coach.”
“Oh, Alan, I just hope that they’re going to be as happy as we are,” Jessica cooed, coming to embrace him.
“I’m sure they will be,” he assured her, holding her close and breathing into her hair.
“I just wish they could go away for a few days,” Jessica said, “to a country inn, or a posting house. One night together, and they come back to service tomorrow morning?”
“Pettus couldn’t afford it, and wouldn’t let me pay for it,” Lewrie said, shrugging, “at least their lodgings’ll be pleasant for their first night.”
On the sly, vases had been set out, filled with fresh flowers, and their sideboard in the wee dining area now held two bottles of wine, white and red, a flask of brandy, and a used caddy now held tea leaves, coffee beans to grind, and a cone of sugar.
“Let’s go down and ring for tea, or coffee,” Lewrie suggested.
“Alan,” Jessica chuckled, “do you really imagine that any of our servants are capable of doing anything ’til suppertime? Hah. You got them all drunk!”
“I’ve ground coffee before,” Lewrie told her. “I think that I can even manage t’boil water. Stoke a fireplace, stoke a stove, hey?”
Once they got to the kitchens, though, it looked a far more difficult proposition. Un-attended for several hours, the fire in the oven had reduced itself to grey kindling and coals, and the top felt cold. Yeovill was seated at the dining tab
le, slumped over flat on his face, and snoring. Bully, the terrier that turned the spit and chased the rats and mice, slept in a wicker basket full of towels and aprons. And, from the male servants’ bedchambers towards the front of the basement, there were even more snores.
“I’ll settle for a glass of water,” Lewrie whispered, unwilling to disturb anyone, “and a nap of my own. Which one of the drawing room settees do you want?”
“A nap, yes,” Jessica agreed, her head lowered towards her chest, and her eyes half-closed. “In our bedchamber?”
“Oh, yes,” Lewrie heartily agreed.
Once back abovestairs, they slipped off their shoes and stretched out, Lewrie’s left arm under the pile of pillows to cradle her. One brief moment to sigh, stretch tense, and relax, and their dream of a nap dissolved, for here came Bisquit, Rembrandt, and the kitten, to whine and frisk about on the carpet.
“Hush, dogs,” Lewrie bade, “curl up and sleep. Oh, hallo puss. Fine, you’re on the bed. Settle down, now,” he said as the cat made his way up between them. Lewrie stroked Buffer, and he began to purr, loudly as was his wont.
“Is he licking your fingers?” Jessica marvelled.
Buffer was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Autumn wore on, the days grew chillier, and the London skies were mostly grey and overcast. It was time to prepare for the coming Winter, time for the chimney swifts to come round with their long brushes and young lads, their clothes and hides dark-smudged and stained the colour of coal, to squeeze themselves up the flues, raining down the hardened soot from the last warming fires of the previous year and late Spring, and the housemaids had to spread old sailcloth in front of the hearths to protect the floors and carpets.
In the front of the basement, near the delivery entrance, sacks of fresh coal was piled deep, bought by the hundredweight, along with bundles and bundles of wood kindling.
The markets were scoured for the last supplies of potatoes, and stored in the larder, along with dried peas, dried beans, bunches of red, green, and yellow peppers, bushels of them. Yeovill, out on his many shopping trips, managed to obtain small bags of spices to be ground to a powder and stored away, as well. He found white rice from Louisiana and the Carolinas, for when the potatoes went bad or shriveled up, covered with eyes, and from Martini’s establishment, came the exotic cous cous from Morocco or Southern Spain, polenta from Sicily, various kinds of pasta, and sun-dried tomatoes that might keep through the Winter.
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