Lewrie might have found an ally in his other brother in-law, Burgess Chiswick, but Burgess was now a Major in a regiment of Foot, and only rarely down to Anglesgreen, and his own estate and house, which just happened to be the one that Lewrie and Caroline had rented and built, the farm and house that Uncle Phineas had sold right out from under him after Caroline had died. Burgess had married, and his new father-in-law, Mr. Robert Trencher, had purchased it for a wedding present, making Uncle Phineas Chiswick a pile of “tin”!
Perhaps the most distressing of all was the reception that Lewrie got from his own daugther, Charlotte. Ever her mother’s child, she had once been the dearest little angel, sweet and adorable—even if he’d never gotten the hang of raising a girl; boys were much easier for Lewrie to understand—who’d adored her father. Once!
That had changed once Caroline began to get scurrilous letters intimating that Lewrie was an unfaithful cad, naming names, citing salacious intimate details, and turning Caroline into a suspicious, bitter harridan, even suspecting and raging at their completely innocent ward, Sophie de Maubeuge.
Sophie? Never. The rest, unfortunately, was too damned true, revealed in spite by a former lover, Theoni Kavares Connor, with whom Lewrie had fathered a child, which fact had taken him some time to discover. Charlotte had been the only child at home to soak up her mother’s anger. Already turned against him, Caroline’s murder as they had fled France was the final straw, Lewrie’s fault alone, and damn Harry Embleton and Governour Chiswick for convincing Charlotte that that was true!
A day or two of retiring early and sleeping late to catch up on years of missed rest, hours in the library with books new to him, and tentative walks outdoors, checking up on his favourite saddle horse, Anson, but unsure if he was ready to try riding, yet, Lewrie had to call upon her at Governour’s house, where Charlotte had lodged since he had been called back to service in the Spring of 1803. He clambered, painfully, into a one-horse carriage and let the unfamiliar coachman, Waddey, bear him over.
* * *
Governour’s sweet but meek wife, Millicent, came dashing from the parlour as their butler announced his arrival, and rushed to give him a hug, crying, “You poor man! We are so relieved to see you alive. When we got your letter saying that your ship would be paying off and you would be coming home, so cruelly wounded, I’ve been half beside myself with worry! So many earnest prayers have we lifted to Heaven for your healing.”
“For which I thankee kindly, Millicent,” Lewrie replied, giving her a warm hug back. “The healing’s coming, slowly. Perhaps a spell in the country’ll do for the rest. Is Governour in?”
“He’s been called away to speak with Sir Romney and some others at the Red Swan,” Millicent told him with a toss of her head. “Local politics, to prepare for the next by-election to keep Harry in office.”
That was a slap in the face; Lewrie had sent a note round that set the date and time of his coming.
“And Charlotte?” he further asked.
“She’s in the parlour,” Millicent said. “Come in and see her.”
Lewrie stumped his way to the wide double doors and stepped through. For a second, his heart jumped as if he’d seen the ghost of his late wife, for Charlotte, now fifteen, was eerily the very image of Caroline as she had been at eighteen when first he had met her in her family’s poor lodgings in Wilmington, North Carolina, just before the evacuation of Loyalists had begun.
Charlotte was primly seated in a wing-back chair near the tall windows, a teacup and saucer beside her, and that pestiferous little lap dog of hers balanced on the chair’s arm. At its first sight of him, it picked up where it had left off years before, wiggling as if ready to attack, and barking shrilly. Charlotte’s gaze was level and neutral, and she made no attempt to rise and give him even the barest greeting. Her only reaction was a slow, indrawn breath.
“Hallo, Charlotte … back from the wars, at last,” Lewrie said, starting to walk towards her with a tentative grin on his phyz.
“Yes, you are, as anyone may evidently see,” Charlotte replied in an arch drawl suitable to some fatuous ass who had just announced a blinding glimpse of the obvious.
“Oh, sit you down in the other chair, Alan, and have some tea,” Millicent prompted, going to Charlotte’s chair to scoop up the noisy dog and shoo it towards the entry hall. It came right back to defend its mistress, making fake lunges at Lewrie’s boots, to the point that Millicent dumped it in the hall and shut the doors on it, at least muting the growls and yaps.
He stayed a little more than an hour, and a testy one it was.
Yes, Charlotte had gotten his letters, but left it to Governour to inform him of her progress. Yes, she had heard from her younger brother, Hugh, and of his doings aboard HMS Pegasus, and the battle of Trafalgar. Yes, she also had gotten letters from her older brother, Sewallis, also a Midshipman aboard the Third Rate HMS Aeneas. Most pointedly, she recalled Sewallis’s description of being in Portsmouth the same time as Lewrie, and dining with him … and his new woman!
“The lady is Miss Lydia Stangbourne, the sister of Percy, Viscount Stangbourne,” Lewrie explained, “both of whom I met the day that I was knighted and made baronet, at Saint James’s Palace.”
“Yes, Sewallis said that you had begun associating with the better sort,” Charlotte had simpered, “though he also said that there are rumours that she is a divorcé? And, in his opinion, nowhere near as pretty as our mother was,” she’d concluded with a sniff.
No, he hadn’t forced Sewallis to go to sea, that had been the lad’s own idea, and of his own doing behind everyone’s backs, he had to explain for the umpteenth time. And no, he was not getting ready to replace Caroline with another, either!
Of his recent exploits, taking part in the re-capture of the Dutch colony at Cape Town, and his jaunts ashore with the Army, and hunting, then the foolish expedition over to Buenos Aires and the Plate River Estuary, Charlotte was dismissive.
“The papers say that Commodore Popham and General Beresford were both captured, and the entire army lost, and both are to be tried for it,” Charlotte said with a moue. “A ludicrous endeavour, but one suitable to you, one must suppose,” she’d scathingly said, all the while smiling nigh wickedly.
“Charlotte!” Millicent weakly chid her. “Your own father!”
“No matter, Millicent, no matter,” Lewrie had said, surrendering any hope of ever thawing his relationship with his daughter. She had, absent her mother, become a product of Governour’s biting tutelage, a pupil of his bile. Charlotte had been given a decent education in all the social graces. Lewrie was sure that she excelled at music, grace of carriage, and the housewifery skills necessary for her to become the mistress of some fine house. Earlier on, Governour had written to express how well-tutored and well-read she was. It was just too bad that her lessons in graciousness in speech towards all had been wasted!
God help the poor bastard who takes her for a wife, if he don’t toe her line to a Tee! Lewrie concluded.
“I think I’ll be going,” Lewrie had announced at last.
“Oh, must you, Alan?” Millicent had fretted.
“So soon? Must you really?” Charlotte had echoed with sarcastic feigned sweetness, then pointedly looked away, tending to her teacup.
“Charlotte!” from Millicent, again. “Stay a while longer, Alan, do. Governour is sure to be home, soon.”
“I’ll run into him, surely. In the village, at church?” Lewrie had said with a shrug. “Adieu, my dear.”
“Adieu,” Charlotte had responded with a very brief sweet smile.
* * *
A proper father’d break out in tears, Lewrie told himself on the coachride back to his father’s house; But all I want t’do is give the little bitch the thrashin’ of her life! She wants t’be Governour’s brat, let him have her, and without my money t’support her arrogant, snippy airs! Let Governour pay for all her gowns and bonnets, and the food she eats, and I’ll save myself fifty pounds a year, and kee
p the money I’d planned for her dowry in the Three Percents!
He wasn’t welcome in Anglesgreen, could not think of a single house where people would be glad to greet him. He could have camped himself and his people at his father’s house in London, but that would not have lasted a week; the old bastard would’ve run them all off at gunpoint! It would have cost him some, but he could have forseen the consequences and rented a small country place just outside London, up the Hampstead Road, or even out to the East in Islington.
“Best, I heal up and go away,” he muttered to himself, massaging his achy thigh. “Get started on whatever it takes, straightaway.”
Will Cony had overcome his maiming. He’d offered to aid Lewrie to overcome his, too. Why not? He nodded his head, agreeing with himself, as he determined to ride if he could, coach if he must, down to the Old Ploughman and take Will Cony up on his offer, the very next morning!
CHAPTER FOUR
“Ow,” Lewrie said with a wince, muffling himself to appear stoic and manly. “Bloody stupid damned beast!” he added, reining what had been his favourite riding mount to a halt, and steeling himself for a dismount. He coaxed Anson over to the mounting block, slipped his right boot from the off-side stirrup, took a deep breath, and swung over and down, with the reins and his stout walking stick in his left hand. “Uhh!” he grunted as his right leg took his weight.
The Old Ploughman’s “daisy kicker” lad took the reins for him and led the horse away to the hitch-rails, leaving Lewrie atop the old wooden mounting block that was usually used only by ladies, trying to decide which leg he’d trust for the first step down. He chose the left one, switched the walking stick to his right hand to support him, set his left boot on the ground, and felt the thigh muscles of his right leg quiver in weakness.
“Christ, this’ll never work,” he muttered, slowly turning round.
“Tcha, Cap’m Lewrie, you’re doin’ better,” Will Cony said as he swung his substantial bulk from the saddle of his own horse and came to join him. “We haven’t been at it a fortnight, and ya made the better part of a mile, this mornin’, afore ya had t’saddle up. I’ll lay ya a shillin’ ya make th’ whole mile, t’morra.”
Saddling up! Anson wasn’t as tall as a blooded hunter or thoroughbred, but getting astride each morning could almost look comical to any passersby. The well-gravelled lane down from Dun Roman was a slight slope, but even turning his horse athwart the lane with Lewrie on the up-hill side for an inch more advantage was a dread, trusting his right leg long enough to get his left boot in the stirrup, after hiking that better part of a mile, and feeling his wounded leg begin to quiver and ache. This daily exercise was as exhausting as several miles of march following General Sir David Baird’s army last January when the Dutch Cape Colony had been re-conquered; Blaauwberg Bay to the Salt River in one day, with a battle included!
Maggie Cony felt it her duty to fatten him up. As soon as he sat down at a table near the fireplace, out came a plate of scrambled eggs, crispy strips of bacon, potato hash, thick slices of toast, with a bowl of butter and a pot of red currant jelly close by, and a cup of scalding hot coffee, which would be refilled several times. Some days it would be pork chops, a smoke-cured ham steak, or a chunk of roast beef instead of bacon. At least Lewrie’s aches and pains got rewarded!
Will Cony did a tour of the large room to see that all of his other customers were being taken care of, then fetched himself a mug of hot tea from the kitchen in back, and came to join Lewrie.
“How’s he doin’, Mister Cony?” Abigail, the brunette waitress, asked as she came to refill Lewrie’s cup.
“Nigh a mile t’day, Abigail, nigh onta a mile,” Cony boasted.
“That’s grand, it is!” Abigail cheerily said. “By Christmas, I wager you’ll be runnin’ fast as your horses, Captain Lewrie. Do you wish more cream?”
“Aye, thankee,” Lewrie agreed.
“I always wondered,” the girl breezed on after fetching more cream, “why your father called his house Dun Roman.”
Lewrie chuckled, then explained the “Done Roaming” pun, which made Abigail groan. “The old tower, well … before the Romans came, ancient Britons built wooden hilltop forts, and they called ’em duns, and some folk think the tower was a Roman watchtower, but it’s too far from the Guildford, Chiddingfold, or Petersfield roads to do ’em any good. Most-like, it was some Norman lord who planned t’run him up a castle and tower, and went broke before he could finish it.”
“That, or our people ran th’ French bastard off,” Cony hooted.
“The church, Saint George’s, came later, maybe in the 1500s,” Lewrie speculated. “The tower? Maybe five hundred years before that.”
“That old? Lordy!” Abigail exclaimed in surprise.
“And, if ya’d seen th’ tavern afore me an’ Maggie re-did it, you’da known that the Old Ploughman’s nigh older than the church!” Will Cony said with a laugh. “It ain’t called th’ Old Ploughman fer nought.”
“As old as me coffee, Abigail!” an elderly follow cried out, raising a laugh, and the girl went to his table to begin joshing with him and his mates.
“Ya been doin’ th’ sword-play ev’ry day, too, Cap’m Lewrie?” Cony asked as he stirred some of the fresh cream into his tea.
“In the afternoons, after a good long rest,” Lewrie told him, scoffing his attempts. “Heavy Navy cutlasses, against Desmond or Furfy, for about a half-hour. All I can manage, yet,” he said with a shrug. “Yeovill, Pettus, and Jessop have taken up the drill, too. Bored, I expect. Since my father keeps such a large staff, even when he’s not here, there’s little for them t’do, and Yeovill can’t even get within smellin’ distance of the kitchens, ’less Mistress Furlough’ll take a meat chopper to him. It’s a damned pity, ’cause she’s only a passable cook. Roast, fry, boil, repeat if necessary, hah! Takin’ breakfast here’s the best meal I see.
“Then, I’ll have t’saddle up that fractious damned horse, and trot back uphill,” Lewrie gravelled between bites. “Like today, Anson has been ridden so little since I sent him up to Father’s stables that he just won’t go at a walk. Trot, lope, canter … ouch!”
“Speakin’ o’ ancient Britons, sir,” Cony slyly said, “ya ever hear of an ambler? They were very popular, back when yer tower and th’ church, and th’ village were young. Ya don’t see ’em much anymore … but, there’s a smallholder a few miles from here who still breeds ’em, an’ sells one, now an’ again.”
“What’s an ambler?” Lewrie asked, perplexed.
“Why, it’s a horse, sir!” Cony said with a grin. “They’re stout an’ cobby, sorta shaggy-lookin’, with big hooves like a Clydesdale, an’ just as plumy-hairy round th’ fetlocks, but they’re not over eleven or twelve hands at the withers, and as gentle as baa-lambs. Best of all, they’ve got a peculiar gait like no other horse. They pace at a fast walk … how they got their name … and can go for hours an’ hours, an’ th’ rider might as well be sittin’ in a rockin’ chair for all ya’d know, steady as a rock.
“Now, it may be ol’ Mister Doaks’d rent ya one for a few weeks, just ’til yer strong enough t’manage yer own horse,” Cony suggested. “What say I ride over this afternoon an’ speak with him, sir, and if I can strike a deal, I’ll bring one up t’th’ house t’morra mornin’ for you t’try.”
“We could try one out, aye,” Lewrie agreed after a ponder. “Do ye think a pound note’d suit him?”
“Bring ya change back, Cap’m Lewrie,” Cony promised.
* * *
“’Tis good I didn’t bet ya a shillin’, sir, for I’da lost,” Cony said as they stopped by a gnarled old oak tree. “That’s a full mile ya done this mornin’, an’ Maggie’s sureta throw in a beef steak t’reward ya! Want t’go a bit more?”
“A furlong more, maybe … to the stile yonder,” Lewrie decided.
“Yer on, sir!” Cony quickly agreed and they paced off once more, leading their mounts. They made that furlong to the stile, then drew to a
nother stop, with Lewrie panting a little. He reached down to massage his right leg which still felt weak, but this morning, at least, it did not ache quite as loudly as the day before. He led “Peterkin” round alee and contemplated the brute.
The rented ambler was a shaggy thing, with hair almost as long as Scottish red cattle, its coat mottled grey with long white mane and tail. Its back was broader than an average saddle horse, so his usual saddle would not suit, and for two shillings more Cony had rented this older-style saddle with a prominent horn, a taller and wider cantle at the rear, and broader stirrup straps. He had tried out mounting up at the house’s stables, still using the mounting block, adjusting the length of the stirrups to fit him, but now …
“Ye goin’ t’cooperate, Peterkin?” Lewrie asked it.
The ambler swivelled its head round to look at him and gently whickered, but stood stolid and still, with no tittups.
“Right, then,” Lewrie said, steeling himself for sudden pain, and reaching up for the saddle horn. He lifted his left leg and got the toe of his boot in the stirrup and levered himself up and over, and winced … but not as badly as before. He clucked and kneed the horse into a walk, then a trot, then a lope, then … the ambler began its “amble”, as if cantering or galloping were lost arts. “My God!” Lewrie hooted, “it’s goin’ like a Cambridge coach!”
Cony had to set his horse at a lope to keep up with him, and the last three-quarters of a mile to Anglesgreen went by in a twinkling! Then, after his breakfast, though still using the mounting block, he set Peterkin to his mile-eating pace right off, and it really was a very smooth, jounceless ride up the rising lanes to home, the smoothest of his life.
The King's Marauder Page 3
