“Ah, bom dia, Senhor,” the fellow said with a smile.
“Bom dia,” Lewrie replied, grinning back. “Fala Ingles?”
“Sim, Senhor, I do,” the stout fellow said with a hearty laugh. “The English has always been useful in Lisbon, and the English and Portuguese have been good friends for ages. It is even more useful now, with your soldiers protecting us from the detestable French.” He looked as if he would spit on the floor when he said French. “I can help you, Senhor? You need lodging?”
“I’m looking for Senhora Covilhā’s rooms,” Lewrie told him.
The clerk, manager, whatever he was, squinted, losing his helpful, cheerful demeanour, and stiffly said, “The Senhora is in Number Four, one floor above, in front, Senhor,” He then brusquely returned to his sorting.
“Obrigado,” Lewrie said, heading for the stairs with his bundle of newspapers. Ouch, he thought; Should have known.
This wasn’t Gibraltar, where officers who could afford to kept mistresses, where courtesans brought their clients, filled with thousands of rollicking sailors both naval and merchantmen, and off-duty garrison troops roaming about eager for drink and the services of the doxies. At Gibraltar, prudity was rarely observed, and mostly was scorned by all but the senior officers, and their prim wives who nagged them to do something about it.
No, this was a conservative Catholic city in a conservative Catholic country. Lewrie suspected that Lisbon, and Portugal, were just as sinful as any other place—they were full of humans, after all—but here, people pretended to be scandalised a lot stronger than they did in London.
As he ascended the stairs, Lewrie cautioned himself to take care, perhaps not sleep over, else the owners might deem Maddalena a whore and kick her out. With a secret grin, he also wondered if he must bite on a pillow in “the melting moments” to stifle his usual exuberance when they made love!
He found her door, took a deep breath, and rapped.
“Sim?” from within, an exasperated sound. “Quem é?”
“The bloody Royal Navy!” Lewrie called out with a laugh.
“Alan?” she cried back. “Fantastico!”
The lock clacked, the door was flung open, and there she was, flinging herself upon him and drawing him inside her rooms.
“Oh, at last, at last!” Maddalena crooned between deep kisses. “It has been so long! Ah, meu amor!”
Lewrie lifted her off her feet and danced her round the room, oblivious to the surroundings, admittedly stumbling here and there on the odd piece of furniture or the carpet. He nuzzled her neck and breathed in the scent of her hair. “At last, indeed, meu querida,” he whispered in her ear. “Did ye miss me that much?”
“Desperately … horribly,” Maddalena told him, leaning back for a moment to gaze at him, then pressed herself close once more with a girlish squeal of delight. “You find me when I am such a mess.”
“You look grand,” he assured her.
Smells a touch high, though, he had to admit to himself.
“In the middle of cleaning and un-packing…” she said.
“You still won’t take on a maid?” he asked, finally taking the time to look about her new set of rooms. And Maddalena, Lewrie at last took note, wasn’t exactly dressed for company, but wore one of her oldest peasant shifts, a pair of woven reed slippers peeking out from below its hem, with a long apron atop the shift, and her long, lustrous dark hair pinned up and covered with a kerchief like a maid-of-all-work, or a scullery maid. At Gibraltar, she had been just as frugal, preferring to do as much as she could for herself.
“The gerente … the manager, offers to send maids to change the bedding once a week,” Maddalena told him, “and to sweep, mop, and clean, but is fifty centimos, and I…”
“Maddalena, meu querida, I can afford it,” Lewrie assured her. “Take them up on it. The manager. Is he that bearded fellow at the desk?”
“No, that’s Rubio, the morning clerk,” she said, “He imagines that he runs it all, and thinks that the standards have slipped too far since the French came. I don’t think he likes me,” she confided with a twinkling grin.
“Happy here?” Lewrie asked.
“Now that you are, meu amor,” Maddalena replied. “Let me show you the view!”
The deep balcony spanned all three of her rooms, with glazed doors leading out to it. South-facing, the canvas awning would be more than welcome as the season advanced into Summer. Below lay the city, marching down to the flatter land and the Praça do Comércio and its parks. Beyond was the wide Tagus River estuary, all of the shipping, and beyond to the South bank towns and villages of Almada, Cacilhas, Seixal, Barreiro, and Montijo, all in all a most impressive vista.
“It comes mostly furnished,” Maddalena explained, showing him the rattan seating and side tables on the balcony, then leading him back inside. Off to the left of the parlour was a dining area with kitchen with a four-place table and chairs, a waist-high cooking grate set into a stone chimney, and a battered old sideboard to store things and serve as a work counter.
To the right of the parlour was the bedroom, dominated by the tall bedstead and a large armoire to supplement the two large chests that Maddalena had fetched from Gibraltar. Her white-and-tan cat, Precious, lolled on one corner of the colourful coverlet, and her red warbler was flitting about and singing to itself in its cage.
“Still cook for yourself, too?” Lewrie teased.
“Oh, Lisbon is so much nicer than Gibraltar, Alan,” she told him, excitedly, “there are so many cafes close by, so many pastelerias, and so many places to buy fresh food for cooking, or shops where I can pick up whole meals to bring home! Oh, so many wonderful things that I haven’t tasted in years, the alentejana, pataniscas de bacalhou, and all the cheeses!”
“Home, are you?” Lewrie japed, with not a single clue as to what dishes she raved about; his Portuguese was even more limited than his poor command of French.
“Sim, I feel so,” Maddalena quickly agreed, looking dreamy for a second, “I feel I am becoming a Lisboêta, happily so, and may never wish to live anywhere else. Would you like something to drink, Alan? I have some vinho branco, and some espumante.”
“Think I’d favour the espumante,” he told her, gathering up all the newspapers he’d spilled and heading for the settee. As Maddalena busied herself in the kitchen, he had time to look all round her new lodgings. She had not brought much from Gibraltar, due to the shipping costs, so most of the furnishings and decor had come with the rooms, though there were some familiar tablecloths, the bed coverlet, and some throws over the settee; things that could be folded or rolled up in a chest or crate. Her clothing would have been her major concern, along with her cat and her bird. When she came back with the wine, Lewrie saw that the glasses were new to him, too.
“You had to re-furnish almost everything?” he asked after a sip of the sparkling wine. “Just sell up and take ship? Sorry for making you rush.”
“I was delighted to,” Maddalena assured him. “Getting a chance to come to Lisbon, at last? To be with you, again? What I sold off was easy to replace, just … things, and what is not furnished here was much less costly than things were at Gibraltar, and with a much greater selection. I had not been aboard a ship in years, not since I left Oporto, but that was not that costly, either, and it was fun.”
“Mountjoy said something about offering you some work?” he asked her. “Has he?”
“Ah, yes!” Maddalena said, growing excited, again. “He has me translating from Portuguese, Spanish, and some of the few items he gets from the French, or from one to the other. It is all so mysterious, what he and Mister Deacon do. If what little help I give them drives the French from my country, and from Spain, then I am proud to help them, and I will make five pounds a month for doing so, too! Maybe I will buy you supper?” she teased.
Christ, women workin’ for a living! Lewrie thought; Her and that Jessica Chenery, both! She keeps this up, she won’t need me or my money! Wait. Now she’s learnin’
French?
“So many newspapers,” Maddalena said, reaching over him to pick one out of the pile. “Bom, I can use them when I clean all of the glass panes.” To Lewrie’s puzzled look, she added, “I think it is something about the ink that helps cut the grime.”
“You can do that anytime,” Lewrie told her.
“No no, it must be done today,” Maddalena insisted. “I need more pails of water. You will help me, meu querido?”
Work? Lewrie gawped; Cleanin’? Domestic…? Damn!
Such was the last thing he’d come ashore for!
“Behind the building, in the old stableyard, there is a pump,” she explained. “It might smell, but for the fact that no one can afford horses after the French ravaged the city, and what beasts there were before, they took with them when they surrendered and left. It will not take long. I’ll show you where it is.”
“Ehm, for the windows,” Lewrie hedged, “not for a hot bath? Surely, the house helps with that, the cleanin’ maids?”
“Oh no,” Maddalena laughed, leaning her head over to pretend to sniff herself, “though I will need one before we go out to dine. There is a women’s bagnio one street over, very discrete and secure. And a man’s bath-house across from mine. Come. It will only take a moment, and then you can read your papers, sip your espumante, as I clean.” She batted her lashes and almost put on a pout.
“Oh, very well,” Lewrie grumbled as he stood, took off his sword belt and coat, and went to pick up a pair of wooden pails.
“And, as I clean the windows, you can read the articles to me, and we can talk,” Maddalena said most perkily and encouragingly.
Oh, how holly jolly! he thought. His late wife, Caroline, had never roped him into housewifery, though she’d never thought it beneath her own dignity as the lady of the house to work alongside their few maids at the more-demanding chores, herself, but…!
He was an English gentleman, for God’s sake, a Post-Captain only slightly under God in the Royal Navy; people like him simply didn’t do “domestic”, or chores!
The things I do for King and Country, he told himself; Or for a chance to roger a woman ’til I’m cross-eyed!
* * *
In the end, though, reading interesting articles aloud whilst sipping the sparkling espumante—and watching someone else work—wasn’t all that bad an afternoon, and Maddalena’s acute comments to the papers’ contents proved all over again how shrewd and intelligent a young woman she was, besides being so fetching.
The bagnio Lewrie visited afterwards was a welcome treat, too, nothing like his dubious expecations. Instead of a wooden tub used by dozens before him, there was a copper tub, fresh-scoured, rinsed out, and set in a private room where he could keep an eye on his belongings and clothing. Cheerful attendants kept pails of hot, clean water coming, the soap cake was finely-milled and pleasantly scented, and the towels provided were dry, clean, and smelled of lye and sunshine, fresh off a line. After a splash of Hungary Water (only five centimos extra), he left the bagnio a much happier and cleaner man, with no more salt-crystal itches, even if the presence of a British army had raised the bath prices from six pence to a whole shilling.
Maddalena met him in the street, fresh from her own ablutions, and dressed in a pale green gown she’d carried with her, a white lace shawl, and a perky bonnet, daintily twirling a yellow parasol, with a welcoming grin on her face.
She steered him to a pasteleria for travesseiros, sugary egg and almond pastries and marvellous Brazilian coffee with thick and sweetened cream, lingering and idly chatting in emulation of the other Lisboêtas. Later, on their way back to her lodgings, they visited a well-stocked wine shop, where Lewrie bought more espumante and some rosé vinho verde for her pantry.
And then it was time for supper, and a leisurely stroll down to the same restaurant where Lewrie and Mountjoy had earlier dined, savouring the slightly cooler air of dusk, and the—dare he call it romantic?—aura that Lisbon took on as the sun slanted lower to the Atlantic, casting the city’s stone buildings golden, and as the lanthorns before shops and houses sprang to life. In the Tagus, nigh an hundred ships’ taffrail lights twinkled, and their reflections danced and rippled on the flowing river like a fairyland, and Lewrie felt it a crying shame that the restaurant did not have an outdoor patio where he could gaze down at the magical city and the Tagus, mesmerised.
Oh, God, after weeks of deprivation, there were fresh salad greens, razor-thin cucumber slices, tiny wedges of tomatoes, heaps of lettuce and spinach, all dripping with vinaigrette. Fresh bread rolls with butter instead of stale, weevily ship’s bisquit. Lashings of a vinho branco, Gazpacho, a Portuguese version of chilled tomato and garlic bread soup, redolent of olive oil, vinegar, and oregano.
And then, most toothsome of wonders, came that alentejana she had enthused about for Maddalena; diced pork and cockles spiced with olive oil, garlic, and paprika in a savoury sauce. She allowed him a taste or two, but his own order, the acorda de camarãoes, sent Lewrie over the moon; prawns, lobster bits, with garlic and cilantro, thickened like the gazpacho with bread crumbs.
Something sweet for after were queijadas limao, perfect following such spicy dishes; cheesecake-like lemon pastries. They lingered over port, queijo da Serra, a creamy, soft cheese, and sweet bisquit.
At last, sated, stuffed in point of fact, and after a final cup of that strong coffee, and with Maddalena bestowing upon him fond, yet dreamy, gazes Lewrie essayed his slim Portuguese to their waiter, saying “Queria a conta, por favor.”
“Sim, the bill. At once, Senhor,” was the prompt reply.
“Oh, you were close, meu amor,” Maddalena told him with a teasing smile, “but it’s not conta, it’s congta poor favor. When you try to speak Poortoogesh.”
“Then I’ll never get the hang of it, I suppose,” Lewrie replied with a sheepish grin, and a shrug of his shoulders. “Ready for me to see you home?”
“Yes, meu querido,” she slowly said, “but only if you promise to stay the night.”
“Wild, sword-wavin’ Turks couldn’t drag me away,” he vowed. “Let’s go, ah … vaamoosh para a caa-ma. Did I say that right?”
“Perfectly, meu amor,” she agreed, with her eyes full of promise. “Let us go to bed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mountjoy’s right, damn him, Lewrie thought once back aboard and seated at his desk in his day cabin; playin’ pirate is all well and good, but … He heaved a sigh as he opened a drawer and took out a sheet of good bond paper, opened the ink-well, and began to compose a letter to Admiralty requesting more ships. There were only three ways that his superiors in London could take his request; as an admission that the task was too big for him to handle and that he had bitten off more than he could chew; as a sly way to promote himself to the status of an Admiral in all but name; or, as a legitimate plea for more help. Knowing full well the Navy’s jealousies and penchant for back-biting—A Band of Brothers, bedamned!—he was certain that his request would not redound to his good credit, but it would be necessary, if the task was to be done properly.
He threw in a little boasting, of course, citing the numbers of prizes taken in only two brief cruises, and the capture of a French corvette, but admitted that those successes were but a pittance of the volume of trade, and that once his ships had to quit the coast for lack of prize crewmen, and sailors to fight their own ships if the French ever sortied to offer battle, the enemy had all the time in the world to supply their armies during their absence.
He sketched out what he might be able to accomplish if given enough ships, even going so far as to suggest that he could emulate his cruises along the Andalusian shore in 1807; landing soldiers and Marines from transports to raid French semaphore towers, gun batteries, and the smaller seaports’ garrisons and sheltering convoys, laying out the needed boarding nets, extra ships’ boats, and light guns required.
Chalmers, he considered, idly tapping the wooden end of his steel-nib pen against his teeth; He’s senior-next to me,
and a second squadron could be built around him, maybe a third under Yearwood.
That would deprive Lewrie the chance to see his son, Hugh, as often as he wished, but it would spare him from those dubious, “stink-eyed” glances that Chalmers shot his way, now and again!
That long letter at last finished, Lewrie considered a second tack, going round Admiralty and writing the senior-most officer in Iberian waters, or the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. If he could put a flea in someone else’s ear who could see the opporunities and second his idea—or find himself and his favourites a place to reap profits and find more excitement than plodding on a dull blockade—and write to London supporting the scheme, the better.
Lewrie was just laying out a fresh sheet of paper to do just that when he heard someone on deck hailing an approaching boat, followed by a loud response, asking for permission to come aboard.
And, when the senior Midshipman of the Harbour Watch called for a side-party to be mustered, Lewrie rose to go satisfy his curiosity. He got to the quarterdeck just in time to recognise Undaunted’s gig approaching the starboard entry-port.
“Speak of the Devil,” Lewrie said as he greeted Capt. Chalmers once the welcoming ritual was completed. “Believe it or not, I was just thinking of you, sir,”
“Were you, Sir Alan?” Chalmers said, somewhat surprised by that statement. “Your pardons for calling aboard without a proper request, but there is a matter which has been nagging at me, and I wished to discuss it with you.”
Of course, being greeted by his Commodore dressed in his shirt sleeves without a neck-stock drew forth one of Chalmers’s dubious, “whatever are you up to, now?” glances.
“Come aft, then, and tell it me,” Lewrie offered, waving him towards the door to the great-cabins. “Will you have cool tea, or a glass of local espumante?”
A Hard, Cruel Shore Page 24
