An hour later, and Lewrie was at a tailor's, not the one recommended by Paisley-Templeton, but the one that Jean-Joseph had named. It didn't begin well, for the elderly tailor had very little English, Lewrie was nigh-incomprehensible in French, and his manservant, Jules, was not as bilingual as he'd been touted to be.
Before negotiations broke completely down, another customer and one of the tailor's journeyman assistants emerged from a change-room at the back of the shop, and rescue was at hand… of a sort.
"Stap me! I declare if it is not Captain Lewrie, to the life, haw haw!" the fellow brayed in an Oxonian accent, and an inane titter.
"Sir… Poult… Pulteney?" Lewrie responded, groping for the fellow's last name and only coming up with "Thing-Gummy." "Yer servant, sir, and I thankee for your kindly assistance 'board the packet."
"Pulteney Plumb, and your servant, Captain Lewrie," the foppish man said back, making a flourished, showy "leg." "I trust your lovely wife recovered from the mal de mere, sir? Ha?"
"Completely, Sir Pulteney, thankee for asking," Lewrie replied. "Those sweet ginger pastilles did the trick. Should I ever command a crew of pressed hands again, a case or two of 'em in the Surgeon's apothecaries might prove useful, hey?"
"Might Admiralty reimburse you for them, though, haw haw?" Sir Pulteney gaily countered. "A parsimonious lot, officialdom."
"Indeed," Lewrie agreed, with a wry roll of his eyes.
"You seek new suitings, Captain Lewrie?" Sir Pulteney asked as he came closer to look Lewrie's current suit up and down. "Then you have come to one of the finest establishments in Paris, one which it was my utter delight to patronise in the years before the Revolution. You see?" Sir Pulteney spun himself slowly round most theatrically, modelling the new suit he was having fitted, and indeed it was a marvel to behold, of subtle grey and black striped watered silk over a burgundy satin waist-coat.
Light on his feet… ain't he, Lewrie thought as Sir Pulteney preened. Sir Pulteney Plumb was perhaps an inch taller than Lewrie's five feet nine, still of a trim, active build for a man in his late fourties (or so Lewrie judged him), broad in the chest and shoulders without appearing too "common" or "beef to the heel."
"Cut to the Tee, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney crowed. "Old Jacques, mon vieux, you have done it again! Fйlicitations!" he congratulated the master tailor, kissing his fingers in his direction, then, in fluent French, urging the fellow to emigrate to London, where he could make an even greater, new fortune… at least that was the gist Lewrie got from it. Old Jacques ate it up like plum duff.
"Something for our newfound friend, here, Jacques? I dare say you'd look particularly dashing in something maroon, or burgundy… 'less you'd prefer something more… everyday, what? Perhaps you and your lady wife envision some formal occasion whilst in Paris, in which case 'dashing' would be required?"
"M'sieur Sir Pulteney ees ze trиs йlйgante, hein?" the master tailor simpered to Lewrie.
Christ, ain't he just! Lewrie silently agreed.
"An occasion, aye, Sir Pulteney," Lewrie informed him, telling him of those swords he wished to exchange. "In short, one thing led to another, and we're down for some theatrical flummery at a levee at the Tuileries Palace with Bonaparte," he said with a wry shrug.
"Presented to the First Consul of France? Begad, sir, what an honour! Odd's Blood, haw haw!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tossing his head back and to one side to emit another of his donkey-bray laughs. "Now we simply must array you in the very finest!"
There was a palaver 'twixt Sir Pulteney and the master tailor to explain how fine a suit would be necessary.
"Jacques cautions that you must not out-shine the First Consul in splendour, Captain Lewrie," Sir Pulteney Plumb said with a cautionary wag of a long aristocratic finger, "and that Bonaparte is fond of his general's uniform, or red velvet, with white silk stockings and a pair of red Moroccan slippers… fellow caught the Turkish and Mameluke 'fashion pox' somethin' horrid during his Egyptian campaign… Even fetched back a Muslim manservant, haw haw! Or sometimes he will don the plainest uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs. Yayss," Sir Pulteney softily speculated as he paced a quick orbit round Lewrie, "you would be splendid, but not too splendid, in something dark red. Vite, vite, Jacques. Maroons and burgundies!"
Is he a Clotworthy Chute, a Jean-Joseph, a Captain Sharp? he had to ask himself as assistants came with tapes to take his measure, and his dimensions were carefully noted in a ledger, should Lewrie be a return customer. "Hang the cost, Begad!" from Sir Pulteney, "Lud, a once in a lifetime occasion, haw haw!"
Fabrics were fetched, stroked, draped over his shoulders to display how a fine broadcloth wool would mould to him; how watered silks or embroidered and figured satins might complement the basic colour motif. Not knowing just how he'd been cossetted into it, Lewrie ended with all the makings for three suits. Hang the cost, indeed!
There would be a dark-red doubled-breasted tail-coat with a wide collar and lapels, snug matching trousers, and an electric blue waist-coat in moirй silk beneath. There would be a grey single-breast coat with a stand-and-fall collar trimmed in electric blue satin that could be paired to the first waist-coat, or a second one in maroon satin. There would be a third, a black single-breasted coat matched with a cream-coloured embroidered waist-coat, which could be mated with those grey trousers or any old pair of black or buff breeches.
Not to mention the hats, new silk hosiery, elaborately laced silk shirts Sir Pulteney thought essential. The gloves or lace jabots, the new-fangled Croatian cravats and various coloured neck-stocks without which a proper gentleman would be deemed half-dressed, or only half finished.
I'll need a new leather portmanteau t'pack away all this bumf, Lewrie told himself, wondering how much that'd cost him, on top of all this? Appointments were made for further fittings before the delivery of the finished togs.
Sir Pulteney Plumb slightly made up for the pained look on Alan Lewrie's face as he goggled over the reckoning, offering to treat him to a late mid-day meal and extending an invitation for Lewrie and his wife to sup with them that evening, his treat, then take in a performance at the Comйdie Franзaise, where, Sir Pulteney grandly informed him, his lady-wife, Imogene-Knew it was somethin' starts with I! Lewrie told himself- had once "trod the boards" as a noted actress of some renown.
"French, o' course, Begad!" Sir Pulteney brayed, tittering over the fact. "Dash it, imagine an English gel on a Parisian stage, haw haw haw!"
A comedy, Lewrie thought, that'll give the fop genuine call for that Godawful laugh o' his!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Caroline Lewrie was waiting, rather impatiently, in their rented suite of rooms for her husband to arrive; pacing, frowning, rehearsing the wrath she would launch as soon as the faithless hound stepped into the parlour. Her purchases, those that could be carried away the same day, she had left scattered on settees, chairs, and table tops-pelts of her "kills," the expensive items that did not even come near to mollifying the rebirth of her anger after meeting Phoebe Aretino, his old mistress, and seeing her in the flesh! And to be so pretty and petite and young-looking, to boot, well!
"I'm home, dear!" Lewrie gaily called out, whipping his old hat at a row of pegs by the armoire, infuriatingly scoring a direct hit and hanging it up on the first try. "Have fun shopping, Caroline? Well, there may be need for a lot more of it, d'ye see-"
"I met an old friend of yours, today… husband!" she fumed.
"Did ye now? I say, that looks expensive, all that… stuff," Lewrie blathered on. "We've some formal 'to-do's' in our future. How would ye like t'meet Napoleon Bonaparte himself? The famous Josephine, too, most-like. And, we're invited to supper and the Comйdie Franзaise tonight. Recall Sir Pulteney Plumb and his lady, Imogene, from the packet? With the ginger pastilles? Ran into him at a tailor's…," Lewrie said, grinning as he went to her, prepared to dance her round the room with his news.
"I said I… what?" said Caroline, flummoxed. "Napoleon Bonaparte? When?"
"Don't know
yet, but our Embassy'll be sendin' round an invitation to a levee at the Tuileries Palace in a few days," Lewrie cheerfully explained. "Those swords o' mine… 'stead of an informal hand-over at their Ministry of Marine, it's got turned into a raree-show. Ye should see the bill from the tailor's t'get me suited proper for it. What's the current rate of exchange, francs to pounds, I wonder?"
"You just… just barge in here, full of yourself, and spring this upon me, like a Jack-in-the-Box?" Caroline blurted, her fury now re-directed on a fresh cause. "You expect me to be presentable at the theatre at the drop of your… hat?"
"Should I have sent you a note first?" Lewrie asked, confused.
"The theatre, tonight?" Caroline continued to rant, pacing the salon. "In one of my old rags? Why…! Sir Pulteney Plumb and Lady Imogene, I vaguely recall… Oh! That lofty couple? They were, as I recall, extremely well-dressed… in the height of fashion. Lord, I might be mistaken for their maid-servant in comparison! Are they anyone?"
"Well, over dinner, Sir Pulteney alluded t'bein' on intimate grounds with the Prince of Wales," Lewrie told her. "And, he seemed t'be swimmin' in gold guineas, 'tween his purchases at the tailor's and him sportin' all for dinner. Supper and the theatre's his treat tonight, too. If they're a pair o' 'sharps,' then they're both out a pretty penny, and if they think t'trick us out of 'chink,' then they're barkin' up the wrong tree. He seems genuine… annoyin'ly odd, but genuine.
"Should I write him a note and ask for a couple nights' delay?" Lewrie offered, sure that something else had set her off, and he ran better-than-good odds that he was "in the quag, right to his eyeballs" over something.
"You will not!" Caroline snapped, after a long moment to mull it over. "If the Plumbs are as well connected and as wealthy and aristocratic as you say they appear, to turn them down would be unseemly. People on close terms with the Prince of Wales, perhaps even with the King himself… "
So are pretty whores, and Eudoxia Durschenko by now, Lewrie had to imagine, though he dared not say that aloud. The winter before, in London, the Prince of Wales-"Prinny" to his friends and "Florizel" to himself, God alone knew why!-had taken a keen interest in Eudoxia, and despite her evil-looking father's Argus-eyed watchfulness over her virginity, the mort did sport a few more baubles than before!
"I'm in the same boat, Caroline," Lewrie told her. "Boat, see?" That was met with another roll of her eyes.
"I'd be wearin' me own best, and my new'uns won't be finished for days, so…," he went on. "Well, there's new stocks and such, hats and gloves, but… "
"I suppose I could throw a suitable ensemble together at short notice," Caroline allowed at last, with an exasperated, wifely sigh. "The Comйdie Franзaise? Gawd, it will all be in French!" she wailed, turning to sort through her new purchases to see if there was anything that would avail, instanter, to liven the best of her supper gowns.
Met an old friend o' mine… in Paris? Lewrie tried to puzzle out as he began to change clothes. He couldn't imagine who that would be, but… he had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd just dodged a broadside and that his wife, despite this new distraction, was still swabbing out, reloading, and just waiting 'til the range was shorter to fire off another!
Meanwhile, in the former offices of the Committee for General Security, just outside the eastern wall of the Tuileries, along the Quai Galerie du Louvre, Mlle. Charitй de Guilleri was paying a call upon the head of the National Police, Joseph Fouchй. It was not one that could be called a social visit, nor was it one done casually, for Fouchй was a very clever, coldblooded man; he had to be, to have survived from the earliest days of the Revolution, one of the last of the "old stagers" so steeped in the blood of discovered or denounced aristos, Royalists, and reactionaries. He'd created bloodbaths at Nevers and Lyon, had threaded a wary way through the denunciations and deaths of Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and the other Jacobins, and had prospered.
"Mademoiselle de Guilleri, ma chйrie" Fouchй gravelled as she was at last let into his offices. He stayed seated, though, intent on the papers on his desk, scanning fresh denunciations of suspected plotters who still hoped to supplant the First Consul, undo the Revolution, and return royal rule to France. Joseph Fouchй was an ill-featured man, rather short and stocky, some might say rotund due to his barrel chest. He cared little for fashion or the proper fit of his clothes, and still wore his shirt collars open, with a loose stock tied more like a sailor's kerchief. He was also completely bald, and shaved what little stubble or fluff remained.
"What can I do for you, citoyenne?" Fouchй asked, reverting to the form of address created more than a decade before at the start of the Revolution; unlike some newly risen arrivistes, Fouchй was a dedicated common man of the Republic.
"The British captain I thought I shot, do you recall, citoyen?" Charitй baldly began, knowing that coquetry and idle niceties before business were wasted on Fouchй, and would irritate him further than she dared. She took a deep breath, waiting.
"Ouais?" Fouchй said with a leery grunt, intent again upon his paperwork. He'd always been unimpressed and dubious of the little self-made heroine's tale, thinking Charitй a foolish dabbler, too full of herself, and too ready to push herself and her "cause" forward.
"I was mistaken," Charitй meekly declared. "The air-rifle… my shot was, perhaps, too weak to kill him, as I dearly wished. I met… I met his wife today, citoyen, here in Paris, and she spoke as if he is still alive, this very moment! He spied on us once, in New Orleans. Who is to say he is not here to spy on us again, you see?"
"You suspect he is here in Paris, to spy on us, citoyenne?" the policeman responded, setting aside a document and folding meaty hands atop his desk. He seemed amused, and a touch irritated, by Charitй's assertion. "Would it not make more sense for this fellow… what is his name?"
"Alain Lewrie, Citoyen Fouchй," Charitй said, un-nerved by the man's chary tone and expression. "An Anglais naval captain."
Fouchй made a pencilled note on a fresh sheet of paper, then looked up again with a scowl on his face. "Would it not make sense he… this Alain Lew… however you say it… spies in our seaports, our navy yards, than Paris, citoyenne? Perhaps you mis-heard what the Anglaise said. You've seen him yourself?"
"Non, citoyen… I have not seen him myself," Charitй rejoined, bristling a little to be patronised or dismissed. "But I speak very good Anglais, from dealings with the barbarous Amйricains in New Orleans, and I know perfectly what Madame Lewrie said. In anger, you see? Surprised by confrontation with another woman whom she suspects was once her husband's mistress, n'est-ce pas?"
Charitй de Guilleri explained the circumstances in " La Contessa " Phoebe Aretino's parfumerie, how icy and angry Madame Lewrie had become upon her introduction… and how flustered Mlle. Aretino had become in turn at the mention of Alan Lewrie's name!
"I quote, citoyen… 'I will extend your regards to my husband, but do not expect them to be returned,' " Charitй told him. "Lewrie is alive, Citoyen Fouchй, and most likely travelling with his wife, here in Paris. I thought the presence of an Anglais officer who put aside his uniform to spy on us in Louisiana should be brought to your attention, lest he do so again against us."
"These other people rescued by this Leew… whatever," Fouchй asked, scowling more deeply. "Do you remember their names?"
"Madame Lewrie alluded to many royalistes escaping Toulon on 'her husband's ship,' she said, citoyen, though the only one she gave name to was a Vicomtesse Maubeuge… her former… ward, I believe Madame Lewrie said," Charitй easily recalled.
"Citoyenne Phoebe Aretino… hmm," Fouchй said with a grunt of displeasure. "Corsican, oui. Of noble birth? Non. A common putain in Toulon, as I recall. There is a dossier," Fouchй said with an idle wave of one hand. "An avid supporter of the Revolution in Toulon had no reason to flee. Service the invaders' officers, for they were the only ones with money at the time, but… did Citoyenne Aretino deny any of the accusations?"
"No, citoyen," Charitй told him
, shifting uncomfortably on her hard chair. She'd come to warn the authorities and to get vengeance on the bastard who'd slaughtered her kin and ruined her plans for revolt, but… Charitй hadn't planned on sending anyone else to prison-or the guillotine! "She seemed very upset by the confrontation, but… after, she… I asked her, not in so many words, n'est-ce pas? Mada-… Citoyenne Aretino seemed… wistful. La tristesse? A woman can see the look of a former lover who is still fond… "
"Womanly intuition," Fouchй sarcastically said with a sneer.
"In this instance, oui, citoyen, I am sure she was once Lewrie's mistress, or lover," Charitй could firmly state. "But so many years ago, surely… "
"You have given me some things to look into, citoyenne" Fouchй told her, making more pencilled notes.
"I failed the Revolution, Citoyen Fouchй," Charitй declared with a clever bit of frankness, and a becoming sniff into a handkerchief drawn from her left dress sleeve. "I truly did believe that I killed him with my shot. I am ashamed to confess my failure, one that puts you to extra work."
Fouchй tilted his shiny head to one side and peered at her for a long moment, unsure whether to laugh out loud at her pretensions as a patriot, and her theatricality. "I will look into this… Lewrie person's presence in Paris, citoyenne," he said at last. "I thank you for your honesty and your alacrity in bringing this matter before me. Perhaps it is nothing, yet… for the safety of the Republic, and the First Consul, enquiries must be made. Is that all, Citoyenne de Guilleri?"
"It is, citoyen Fouchй, merci et au revoir" Charitй said with a sense of relief as she rose from her chair and escaped from the foul spider's immediate grasp… though not his web, for it spanned all of France. In the heady early days, the French newspapers that reached New Orleans had limned Fouchй in her pantheon of heroes with men such as Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and the other brilliant lions of the Jacobins, people she wished to emulate. It was only once she got to Paris and met some of those rare, surviving revolutionaries that Charitй had had the scales torn from her eyes. Joseph Fouchй was an ice-hearted executioner, plain and simple, and no coquetry, no beauty or grace, no flattery could make an impression upon him.
King, Ship, and Sword l-16 Page 12
