“Money, my dear boy,” Sir Hugo replied, smiling again. But it looked like a cadaverous leer of a practiced “Captain Sharp.” “Oodles of money. Oh, I must admit he was loath, in the beginning, hoping it would confer to Governour entire after he was gone. Didn’t wish to split it up. Not in his lifetime at least.”
“Not after he spent most of his life scheming to shove it together.” Lewrie snickered.
“Point taken, Alan,” Sir Hugo grumphed. “Tolerate you as one of his tenants perhaps. Expect Governour to treat his brother, Burgess, the same when he returns from India. Pray God he does. Damned good soldier, is your younger brother-in-law. Would have got the regiment had I had anything to say about it, but … he was not the senior major. And money again … the new fool who got the colonelcy is a third son to one of the nabobs of ‘John Company’s’ Governing Board.”
“Ah … the same old story.” Lewrie sighed philosophically. He had never prospered from family “interest”—or money, either—with this caddish old rakehell at his side to thank for both. At least in the Royal Navy, connexions could only advance the idiots just so far. Talent and seamanship counted in the long run. Though there were the admirals on foreign stations who’d made Post-Captains out of their sixteen-year-old sons, and … !
“Yes, and thank God for’t,” Sir Hugo hoorawed. “Else I’d have not gone a captain in a distinguished regiment like the Fourth. Been some tag-rag-and-bobtail ensign in a kutch pultan in the Fever Isles … or at John O’ Groats! Well, no matter. Does Burgess not get a colonelcy from John Company, I’ll have him back in England … on my staff …’fore he can turn his head to spit.”
“Your staff?” Lewrie half-scoffed, swaying sidewise in his saddle to peer at his father, wondering who in his right mind would give him command of British troops again! “What bloody staff?”
“Why, I’m t’be military aide to the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Alan, me dear!” Sir Hugo hooted. “No matter the next-to-London counties are almost completely run by the Home Office; they still allow the token twits the office. And a dev’lish profitable office it is too! Yeomanry … militia forces … do I not make major-general by this time next year, I’ve either gone tits-up … or wasn’t really tryin’!
“Another reason your Phineas Chiswick would sell me land, Alan,” Sir Hugo confided, leaning a bit closer as they passed under some overhanging boughs at a sedate walk. “For the prestige o’ havin’ me for a neighbour! And for a word in his ear, now and again, as to profitable doin’s … which I pick up from the gora-logs. Reason your Sir Romney is so affable, too … given the bile betwixt you and his son. Toad-eatin’ ain’t limited to the lower classes, Alan, me son. Oh, they’re high and mighty men, Phineas and Sir Romney. Must confess, I care a power more for Sir Romney than ever I could for that … well. A decent, sporting gentleman he is. Dignified, of the old school. Now I’m a land-owner, and not a wealthy tenant, he’s invited me to join the local hunt this winter. Committee decided I’m worthy.”
“You!” Lewrie howled, feeling abused. Didn’t they know what they were getting? he puzzled. Here he was, a long-time neighbour, affable as the day was long … well, to all but Harry. A bloody war hero, due to be a Post-Captain, equal rank to Harry, and he’d still be suckin’ hoof-dust by the side of the road whilst his father would be garglin’ claret stirrupcups. This “fly” rogue, this … !
“Ride on, Sewallis. See what your brother’s up to,” Lewrie bade.
“But, Father …”
“Spur on now. He’s out of sight and just like Goodyer’s Pig, sure t’be in mischief.”
“Oh, alright …” Sewallis grumbled.
“You’ll blow it, you know,” Lewrie told Sir Hugo, once Sewallis was out of earshot. “Sooner or later, that base nature of yours will …”
“Ours, me lad.” Sir Hugo twinkled. “Ours.”
“There’ll be someone’s unmarried daughter, a fit of temper, or something …” Lewrie stammered. “Grope yer host’s maids, guesting …”
“Nothin’ of the sort, lad.” Sir Hugo dismissed him, waving a hand like shooing flies. Shooing horseflies for real, in point of fact. “For one, I ain’t so spry these days that I can rantipole like a young buck-o’-the-first-head. I’m older and … pray God … wiser. Too wise t’be caught, do ye get my meanin’? For a second, I’ll be off half the time to Guildford, London, or Glandon Park, where I may indulge those few penchants o’ mine discreetly … with the better sort o’ whores. I am a man o’ simple tastes … ,” Sir Hugo modestly declaimed.
“Like I’m First Lord o’ the Admiralty,” Lewrie groused back.
“Import me a sportin’ sort o’ doxy, t’pose as my housekeeper,” Sir Hugo speculated. “Done all the time and well you know it. Just the one woman, though … brrrr!” He shivered at the thought of anything close to “domestic bliss.” Or a lack of variety. “Well, mayhap I’ll just stick to the buffet assortment o’ courtesans. I can hold my wine. There’s never been anyone said I couldn’t. I’ve drunk some ragin’ sponges under the table in me time too; and that’s sayin’ something for a man who’s spent his life at mess-night in royal regiments like the Fourth! Where d’ye think our good English peerage hide their drunks but in the Army, hey? Or … the clergy. Gad, do I slosh down a pint less than most vicars and bishops, I’m ready for beatification! Saint bloody Hugo … the Temperate, haw!”
“The Chaste,” Lewrie offered, tongue most firmly planted in his cheek, laughing at the image. At the bloody statue! Or in going to a “Saint Hugo’s” and kneeling for communion.
“Do I dissemble well enough, well … perhaps even that, me boy.” Sir Hugo nodded, as mischievous as ever. “Perhaps even that. There. There’s the beginnings,” he said, perking up like a gun dog on scent, as they topped a bald rise.
It was the tower, the broken-fanged, topless tower where he and Caroline had first kissed, declared their love. Atop a small, flat-top hill, with a view that went on for miles to the North and West. A rill ran South below it, almost lost in a thick stand of timber to its left. Another lay to the South, meandering the bottom of the last swale they had left, where they’d first dined alfresco. A long sweep and another rise, and there was the hill with the lone oak where he’d … and further beyond to the East, the sight of his own home farm, with Embleton estates beyond that. Just barely visible, sandwiched between, was the gloomy old red-brick pile which Phineas owned, off to the Nor’east.
The tower was being re-constructed, he could see. The rectangular, ancient stones had been gathered from where they’d fallen an age or more before and reset. New stones to match, from one of the nearby quarries, had been fetched in to raise it and provide the base of a new house which adjoined it. A basement had been dug out, lined with matching stones or brick.
“It’s going to be huge!” Lewrie gasped at the expanse of the foundation, framed by the first courses of the outer, load-bearing walls.
“Not a bit of it,” Sir Hugo replied. “It’ll be one-level, so I don’t gasp my way up and down stairs in my dotage. Like an old Roman-British villa … or an officer’s bungalow out in India.” His father kneed his horse into motion so they could ride over for a closer look. “Be in by August, they assure me … out from under Caroline’s feet. I expect she’ll appreciate that,” he said, with a wry smirk.
“That quickly? Must cost a bundle, all that haste … ?” Lewrie probed, to discover just how much pelf his father had absconded with.
“Five thousand pounds, the land … two thousand for the house, before furnishin’s,” Sir Hugo off-handedly admitted, as if those sums were mere pittances.
“Dear Lord.” Lewrie felt the need to gawp; who had Sir Hugo robbed … ?
“Be yours … when I’m gone,” Sir Hugo informed him, “my son.”
“Ah … ?” Lewrie realised, of a sudden. Rather hopefully.
“Three-hundred-sixty acres, all told. Cheek-by-jowl, you note, with yer hundred sixty rented from Phineas. But this’ll be a paid-for freehold, free and
clear, time I’m passed over. So I expect Phineas’ll be too. Then Governour’s yer landlord for the smaller parcel, and you and he can work out the details. This for Sewallis, eventually. He’s eldest. Specify in yer will that he’s t’rent the smaller to Hugh, for less than market value. Don’t expect Hugh’ll be home much to enjoy it though. Down for the Navy, I s’pose?”
“That was our intention,” Lewrie admitted, “where I have a bit of influence. Find him a good first ship and captain.”
“Pity. He’s a natural-born horseman. Exuberant child. Daring. And a leader, e’en now. That’s magic with troops. Now I’ve paid off all my creditors, made my pile, I’m a lot more welcome at Horse Guards than ever I was previous. An Army commission is a possibility. In a bukshi regiment too. Needs a bit o’ polish though. A good boarding school, ’round the better sort. We could fund that together, Son …”
“Which did you have in mind, Father?” Lewrie grimaced at the memories of how many of the good ones he’d been tossed out of. “We tried that with me, remember? I doubt they’re forgotten me, so …”
“Yayyss, well, there is that,” Sir Hugo allowed, with a rueful smile of reverie. “Harrow, especially, hey? Boom! You were ever the rebellious young dog. Once Hugh’s eighteen though … we could buy an Army commission. Captaincy first … then a majority, as he seasons.”
“There’s Sewallis to think of first. Two more years and he’ll be due for a proper school. When he’s twelve. Mature enough to stand up to the bullies he’ll meet, sure as Fate.”
“We’ll see him right,” Sir Hugo offered. “Damme, what’s money for if not t’see yer children well-placed, well-educated? And ease the first few hurdles? Money and influence. Grandchildren, rather. I will put up half his tuition and such … a modest allowance too, for both the boys. Charlotte, too, when it’s her time to be shipped off to be ‘finished.’”
“Why, that’s … that’s magnanimous of you, Father. I …”
“Told you long ago, Son. Would’ve bought you a bloody pony and cart, was that what you wished.” Sir Hugo sighed, drawing a plaid kerchief from his sleeve for a blow of his drink-veined nose. “Wasted my youth, me best middle years. I’ll probably waste my dotage too, do I not look sharp about it. Wasn’t much of a father to you, and that’s a God’s honest truth, hey?”
“A-bloody-men,” Lewrie snorted back.
“Made up for’t, after me own fashion … in India.”
An orgy with the three girls of his private bibikhana, as Lewrie recalled it; a cut of the best loot from the Mindanao pirates’ hoard, after they’d slaughtered ’em at Balabac; and aye, some of Caroline’s most impressive jewelry from that … .
“Ah, but yer too old an’ jaded to spoil now, Alan, me dear,” Sir Hugo scoffed, playfully tipping his son’s cocked hat half over his nose.
No, I’m not! Lewrie thought; have a stab at it!
“Sewallis and Hugh, now … second chances?” Sir Hugo went on, sounding regretful, but hopeful too. “Reason I bought land here, do you see. Might have been a horrid father … and a shite-arsed husband a time’r two. But! I might just make a hellish-good grandfather … do you not mind. Be around when you can’t be. Take a tad of the wind out of Master Hugh’s sails … that the way you tarry sorts express it? But a tad. Sewallis, well … impart of a dab o’ backbone, a pinch of confidence now and again. With an heroic sailor for a father, and … dare I say it … an heroic soldier for a grandfather, that might inspire him. When you’re at sea … I could stand in your stead …? Nought to undermine Caroline, o’ course, but … ?”
“You’ll not turn ’em into Corinthians, swear,” Lewrie dithered, torn between acceptance of the peace offering (and the largesse which went with it) or in shouting, “No way in Hell!” for what deviltry Sir Hugo still had fermenting in his breast, no matter his high-flown sentiments.
Look how I turned out! he pointed out to himself; and that with him being there but a tenth of the time! Now, “watch-and-watch” …
“Like I did with you, d’ye mean?” Sir Hugo scoffed. “God, was yer own doin’, that. I merely set you the example …”
“A bad’un,” Lewrie reminded him, smirking, even so.
“Good God, most tykes don’t get even that, so sing small and be grateful!” his father japed in mock-seriousness. “Half that due to no mother in the house t’moderate. Your own mother, then old Alice … up and dyin’ too.”
“Well …”
“Aye, ’tis a rakehellish life I’ve led, Alan. Not that it was not the grandest fun, mind. I’ve one true son I know I sired, turned out decent. One step-daughter a ten-guinea whore now … and Gerald. Wherever he’s got to, he’s most-like but one step away from swallowin’ frogs at fairs for tuppence. But here you are with a fine wife and three fine, healthy children, who’ll be raised decent. I’ve no livin’ relations, no wife, no one to leave a farthing to, and a bit too old t’be startin’ a new family for myself, d’ye see. Christ, money! All I’ve to show for my life is the bit o’ ‘tin’ I gathered soldierin’. Like muckin’ out abattoirs, though the pay’s better, sometimes. Well, a slew o’ ‘tin,’ to be frank about it. ’Cause I was ever fortunate t’be in the right places and light-fingered t’boot! Should have written first ’bout my intentions … should you’ve said ‘no,’ then I would never have come here, but …”
How much “tin”? Lewrie wondered; you a “chicken nabob”?
“Odd way t’get a ready-made family, though … for what, nine or ten thousand pounds?” Lewrie asked, one brow up. Gently probing.
“Nearer to twelve, all told.” Sir Hugo shrugged. “Drop in the bucket. Balabac … rebel rajas’s palaces … good fortune in the opium trade to China? I could have bought Phineas’s estate entire … lock, stock, and barrel … and still have had plenty left,” he boasted.
“Christ!” Lewrie exclaimed, with a low whistle. All his prize-money—should it ever be adjudged and sent to him, mind!—and he’d still be a beggar compared to … “Well, then … I ’spose … you’ll not turn Hugh towards cavalry, hear me? He’s much too clever for that.”
“No, I’ll leave that to the likes of Harry Embleton, Son.” Sir Hugo laughed, much relieved that he had, in essence, “bought” himself a ready-made family after all. And assuaged his conscience, Lewrie surmised; though he was never quite sure if Sir Hugo truly had one or was merely hymn-singing from memory of how proper folk did things!
“Damme’f I don’t like Sir Romney toppin’ fine, but … there’s a good chance the best part o’ Harry ran down the footman’s leg. Sort o’ dim bastard that turns up in the mess as a Cornet o’ Cavalry—so stupid that even the others notice.” Sir Hugo guffawed.
“Well, then …” Lewrie summed up, reaching for his reins. “I s’pose we should be going. ’Fore they maim each other, hmm? See those otters of yours at play? Boys? Saddle up!” he called.
“Erm … thankee, Alan,” Sir Hugo said, offering his hand.
“Not much I could do about it now you’ve already bought land, is there?” Lewrie sighed, as he swung up atop Anson. “Sorry. Didn’t quite come out right, did it? Force of habit … t’be on tenterhooks around you. Wary. It’ll take gettin’ used to, Father,” Lewrie replied, offering his hand. “Mind now, Hugh’s not to have an otter pup. Not take one home. Just ‘adopt’ one … up here at his grandfather’s. You’ll not encourage him, will you?”
“Son!” Sir Hugo shied, acting much maligned. “Moi?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lewrie went over the farm’s books the next morning in his study. The entries were in Caroline’s neat, copper-plate script—or in their overseer’s awkward scrawl. Receipts for seed and such were arranged in one pile and receipts for the sale of sheep, cattle, hogs, wool, corn, and such were in another. Caroline sat by the open double-doors facing the gardens by the side of the house on the west side, knitting and playing games with Toulon, who was mellowing to house-life, and farm-life, quickly.
Keepin’ her eyes on me? Lewrie wondered, T
’see do I smile or do I glower? And glower over what? He almost shivered, recalling their first “posthoneymoon” spat in the Bahamas, when he’d come home from three months amidst the “down islands” and hadn’t appreciated what-all she’d accomplished to turn a rented coach-house into a showplace, had erred by jibing her over the odd pastel the house had been re-painted, as if he were an uncaring cad and she too hen-headed to run their house, present him with a going concern that anyone would be proud of. -
“Does something particular trouble you, dear?” she asked, one brow up and her voice a bit hesitant. Not so hesitant, though, that she didn’t sound … resentful that he might have found something amiss.
“Just as Governour said,” Lewrie admitted, tossing away the newest ledger and leaning back in his chair to puff his lips, frustrated. “Taxes, labour costs. Damme, do we double our profits … as you have done, my dear,” he complimented her, and meant it, which eased her greatly. “With the prices we got, at pre-war tax rates and pre-war wages for workers, we should’ve cleared over £300 … not £200 this past year. Head above water yet … and all that, but … Damme, I wish workin’ for a naval hero’d be worth something!”
“Even Maggie Cony, Alan,” Caroline said, putting aside all her knitting to cross to the desk and stand behind him, one arm caressing his neck and shoulder. “They offered her work in the kitchens of the Red Swan, and I couldn’t match it. With the baby and their cottage in the village to keep up … closer to home and more money, you see. I was sorry to see her go, she was such a treasure, but little I could do to keep her, no matter how friendly we were.”
And hadn’t replaced her, Lewrie noted, saving nearly eight pounds per annum. With the boys old enough, their private tutor had been sent away after the last term just ended. Besides, the new village school was just as good, though nowhere near as uppercrust—and cost a good deal less. No more need of a proper governess, just an older, widowed maid-of-all-work to tend Charlotte. No, grand as it looked, a Lewrie household didn’t seem like it’d be awash in footmen, butlers, serving-girls, and such—not anytime soon, at any rate.
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