The King's Privateer

by Dewey Lambdin

  “And you stay in London how long?” Alan asked as they stood on the icy street once more, whistling up another coach to take them back to their lodgings.

  “We may spend two weeks at the outside,” Governour informed him. There probably wasn’t money enough to allow them to rent rooms and buy food for longer. Burgess would have to be settled in that time, or he would have to return to Guildford and take what little the countryside had to offer.

  “We must see each other again, sir,” Caroline insisted, from the frame of the same dark red velvet, hooded traveling coat she’d worn in Wilmington in 1781. It was a little shiny in places from too much wear, but still presentable enough, and it made Alan feel an urge to buy her a new one, a cloak fine enough to suit her, and what he felt she deserved from life.

  “Call on us, do, Mister Lewrie,” Mrs. Chiswick agreed. “We lodge in St. Clements Street. Oh dear, I forget the house number, but it’s a decent enough house, I’m told. Governour knows it.”

  “Panton Street for me,” Alan said. “I’d never be able to afford it but for Admiral Sir Onsley Matthews and his wife. You remember I wrote of them, Caroline.”

  He and Governour exchanged addresses while Burgess managed to flag down a coach, one of the few that would still risk horses on the streets that were now icing over under the constant drizzle of sleet. Caroline and her mother huddled for warmth to one side by the door.

  “Goodnight, and thank you for the wine, Alan. Do call on us!”

  “Aye, I shall,” Alan told Mrs. Chiswick again, then turning to Caroline, said, “We have so much to catch up on.”

  Which sentiment Caroline agreed with heartily, and gave him a last smile of invitation, and a firm nod of her head as they said their goodnights as well. Then the coach trundled off, leaving Lewrie to trot home on his own, swaddled up in the voluminous dark blue watchcoat he’d never thought he’d find a use for back in the West Indies.

  His lodgings were one pair-of-stairs up from the main floor in the front of the house. Once a substantial mansion, Lady Maude Matthews had turned it into sets of rooms to let. For a very decent fifty guineas a year, about half what Lewrie suspected it was really worth, he got a sitting room with fireplace and mantel, and two whole windows—the Window Tax be damned—that overlooked Panton Street, a fashionable address for foreigners, secretaries and under-ministers to overseas embassies, well-heeled younger blades such as himself; home, too, to a regiment of mistresses. The set of rooms bent in an L, with a bed-chamber to the rear along the outer wall, and from a tiny window, in that room, he could look down upon Oxenden Street, and farther down to the Haymarket and St. James’ Market. It was inclined to be a trifle noisy in the mornings, but he’d learned by then to sleep through almost any din, as long as he wasn’t at sea. Civilian noises and alarums meant nothing to a weary sailor who’d developed the habit of trotting (or crawling) up his own stairs at “first sparrow-fart” every morning and caulking like a sodden log until noon.

  He stepped into the sitting room, where a small sea-coal fire burned in the grate, and the embers and flames were reflected into the room by a brass back-plate. It was the only light in the room until his manservant Cony woke up at his entrance and used a paper spill to light him a candle or two.

  “Mistress Fenton still here, Cony?” Alan asked as he shrugged off his watchcoat and went to thaw out before the fire.

  “No, she ain’t, sir,” Cony was forced to admit. “She did come, but when the church bells went ten o’ the clock, she went on ’ome, sir.”

  Cony shyly handed Alan a folded and wax-sealed letter that had been waiting on the silver tray by the door.

  “She lef’ ya this, sir,” Cony told him. “I ’spect you’d be wantin’ a brandy’r somethin’ warmin’, sir?”

  “Aye, thankee, Cony. I’d admire that,” Alan said, drawing a well-preserved William and Mary chair he’d found at a second-hand shop closer to the fire to read it. Alan Lewrie had gotten too many notes or letters from women to imagine that it was good news. Which explained his waiting until he had a brandy in hand and one sip in his belly for fortification before he broke the seal and unfolded it.

  “Ah,” he said after a first, quick, perusal. Cony was thankfully busy in the other room, putting a warming pan into his bed and building up the fire in the second fireplace so Lewrie could retire and undress without turning blue from exposure.

  If it had tears splashed on it, it couldn’t be more plaintive. This wasn’t the first time Alan had so shamefully ignored her, he read, and he had to admit Dolly was right. There were so many other things to do in a city as great as London. So many interesting people to hear speak, edifying exhibits to visit. Theatres, dramas and comedies to gawk at. Oranges to be bought and hurled at poor players. So many young women to bull.

  She is getting a little long in tooth, Alan told himself. His putative mistress was getting on for thirty. There were the first hints of wrinkles around her mouth, kissable as it was. The first crow’s feet around her peculiarly dark green eyes, bright as they were still. Or perhaps, it was because she was available for his pleasure so little of the time.

  In the beginning, when he’d run into her at a supper dance back in the summer, it had been intriguing to have her again, to pick up where they’d left off on Antigua. And having her free, with another man to pay her keep, and enjoying her between the magistrate’s visits, with one ear to the hallway and the latch was exciting, too.

  “Just as well,” Alan decided. “Come to think on it, I was getting a trifle bored with her.”

  “Yew say somethin’, sir?” Cony asked from the other room.

  “Just maundering, Cony; pay me no mind,” Alan called back;

  “Aye, sir.”

  Dolly had been so grateful for his assistance, and his money which kept her during the war. She’d made a real shore home for him, an activity he strongly suspected she’d want to do again, if he had enough money to support her as he once had. Dolly Fenton was at the upper end of marriageable age, and her magistrate wasn’t doing her much good in that regard. Only the most fascinating widows ever got a second man to take them on, he knew. The best Dolly could hope for was someone incredibly rich to keep her on the side, as her magistrate did. Someone titled, who could keep a mistress openly, care for her all his life and leave her well provided for when he turned up his toes.

  Damn hard lot for most women, Alan thought, folding the letter up with a sense of finality. Wonder what Caroline Chiswick’s lot’s to be? American Loyalist, not a hundred pounds for her “dot” if she did marry. Country girl, even lovely as she is. Service with some family around Guildford? Married to some pinchbeck “Country-Harry” and up to her ankles in dirty children and sheep the rest of her life? God, what a thought, he shivered with more than cold.

  “That be all, sir?” Cony asked.

  “Aye, Cony. You go caulk.”

  “Tomorrow’s me day off, sir,” Cony reminded him. “If there’s anythin’ you’d be a’wantin’ afore I go in the mornin’, sir?”

  “Hmm,” Alan pondered, tossing Dolly Fenton, and her letter, on the coals. “I’ll have a couple of letters for you to run about the town. One to St. Clements Street, to the Chiswicks.”

  “The Chiswick brothers ’ere in London, sir?” Cony brightened.

  “And the mother and Mistress Caroline, too. You tell ’em I sent you, and I expect you’d want to visit them as well after all we went through during the siege.”

  “That’d be wondrous fine, sir! I liked the Chiswicks!”

  “And there’ll probably be a dram or two in it for you, and some of the mother’s ginger snaps. I’ll leave the letters on the tray by the door,” Alan promised. “Tell one of the housemaids to do for me, so you can depart early as you like.”

  “Aye, thankee, sir.”

  “And I expect you’d be needing some cash, hey?” Alan teased his longtime hammockman, wardroom and cabin servant. “Can’t make a grand show with the young ladies without a shilling or two.�
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  He dug out his purse and gave Cony his four shillings.

  “Thankee, sir, thankee right kindly, sir,” Cony said, pocketing the coins and almost skipping down the hall to his own bed belowstairs with his week’s wages ready to burn a hole in him.

  “Damme,” Alan spoke to himself aloud (a habit he’d developed in those few weeks he’d inhabited the captain’s great cabins aft in Shrike), “I don’t believe I’ve been home this early in weeks. And by myself, at that. What a novelty it is!”

  He trailed into the bed-chamber and shucked his street clothes for a silk nightshirt, and a dressing gown thick and heavy enough to serve as a horse blanket. Sleet rapped on the panes, and the glass was frosted almost opaque as a muscovy glass lantern on the windows.

  Alan surveyed his little kingdom, the first home of his own he had ever had that the Navy or his father hadn’t provided. He’d had it repainted a cheery pale yellow before he moved in, with snowy-white wood work. The mantel and hearth were milk-veined grey marble—the genuine article instead of some painted slate most builders tried to foist off on the unsuspecting. There were some nature scenes hanging on the walls, the anonymous sort of thing sketched on some aristocrat’s Grand Tour of the Continent. Roman ruins, Greek temples, viaducts with tall poplars lining narrow roads, almost awash in happy peasantry and well-rendered animals of indeterminate breed—cattle, mostly. There was a copy of some Frog artist’s imaginings of a Sultan’s harem, though the women weren’t as Junoesque as the classics depicted them. Alan suspected the copyist had used some slimmer Covent Garden whores as models. And he wasn’t so sure but that the one reclining on the couch in the foreground wasn’t ’Change Court Betty, who had been one of the first whores he’d ever sprung money for. Once he saw it being loaded into a cart to be auctioned off with the rest of a household’s belongings, he had to have it. Besides, the painting was so inspiring, and a harem had been one of his favorite fantasies since puberty.

  A portrait of his mother Elizabeth hung on the inside wall of the sitting room near the door, over the sofa. His granny had given it to him on his visit to Wheddon Cross. A portrait of himself as a naval lieutenant hung beside it. He’d had one done for his granny, and had thought a second copy could always come in handy as a present for some future amour.

  The furnishings were quite good—half London was always selling up and moving to stay a step ahead of creditors, or buy their way out of debtor’s prison, so the selection had been quite varied. Deep blue velvet, sprigged with bright vines and flowers, covered the sofa and two upholstered high-backed chairs. The tables and exposed wood shone with bee’s wax and lemon oil, and no one hardly ever noticed the odd nick or scratch the previous owners had caused. And he had the bench before the fire, and the two side chairs as well. The dining table, sideboard and wine cabinet made the far end of the room a cheery, cozy place to eat or play cards. Cards, mostly. The most fashionable young men dined out at clubs or chophouses, sending down to an ordinary for meals if at home. And if he did have to entertain and feed guests, he could send Cony out shopping, and trust the kitchen in the basement of the lodging house to come up with something presentable, though he did it seldom.

  He could maintain this lifestyle for some time yet, if he was careful with his money. Three hundred pounds a year had been enough to keep a single gentleman in style before the war, and with no need for a horse or coach of his own, and only the one servant, two hundred would do now. He could not purchase every book that struck his fancy. Could not entertain lavishly. Would have to watch for bargains instead of spending like a lord on the Strand.

  Oh, he’d had to buy plates, saucers, silverware and serving utensils for the first time. Stock that wine cabinet. In his reverie of accounting his possessions, he opened it and poured his glass of brandy back up to full. Yes, it could be a good life, he decided. Best he’d lost Dolly Fenton, after all. She’d have turned expensive.

  “Speaking of Dolly,” he said aloud again with a weary mutter.

  He had notes to write. One to Dolly, a parting shot to salve his ego. One to the Chiswicks, and Caroline, laying the ground for a proper reunion with her. And one to Lady Delia, to let her know she could expect him by early afternoon, if the weather would allow.

  Chapter 3

  Mwack. A carping little sound, half trill in the back of the throat. Then the rustle of cleverly parted bed-curtains, and a heavy weight hitting the mattress down near the foot of the bed.

  Mwack, again. Something stalking up the side of the bed to the pillows. Then a leap from one side to the other that for one moment put all four paws in an area no larger than a pocket watch. Right in the center of Alan’s belly.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he groaned, opening one eye.

  He was confronted by a round, furry face, and two yellow eyes staring back at him somberly from three inches’ range. Mwack! More petulant, louder this time. William Pitt had his best pout on.

  “And what the hell do you want, you little bastard?”

  William Pitt had been the best mouser aboard the Shrike brig, a ship absolutely infested with the creatures—his former captain, Lieutenant Lilycrop had adored the little beasts—the king ram-cat and the one with the worst disposition of any feline even Lilycrop had ever met. Why he, at long last, took a liking to Lewrie (who had always thought a cat was better drowned at birth), no one could ascertain.

  He’d moved into the great cabins once Alan had gotten command. More than that, William Pitt had startled the officer initially appointed into Shrike at the entry port and sent him crashing back into the longboat to break his unfortunate skull before he could even introduce himself.

  They’d paid off at Deptford Hard, laying Shrike up in-ordinary, and sending the crew off to civilian pursuits. Somehow, he’d followed Alan’s belongings down the gangplank at the stone pier, and into the coach. The cat had an open door to depart anytime he felt like it, but so far, had shown no signs of taking advantage of it, other than a stroll out into the back-gardens, or sunning himself when the miserable London weather allowed. There were queens enough in the neighborhood for him to roger when they came into heat, and Alan grudgingly let the cat be fed in his apartments.

  Pitt slept near the hearth, either in the below-stairs kitchens where the housemaids and other servants slipped him some tucker on the side, or in the bed-chamber. William Pitt wasn’t picky. Nor was he of a disposition that doted on much affection from humans, so he could be tolerated most of the time.

  Alan put out a hand and rubbed the top of the cat’s grizzled head. Pitt allowed himself to be greeted, then shook his head vigorously and sank down on his haunches to scratch at his offended ears with a back paw. One did not make the mistake of touching Pitt more than he liked more than once. Not if one enjoyed having fingers.

  “How’d you get in here, anyway?” Alan mumbled, sliding up to the headboard and plumping up his pile of pillows.

  “Mornin’, sir?” a tentative voice called from beyond the bed-curtains. “Your man Cony said to come wake you, sir? ’Tis Abigail, I am, sir?”

  An “Abigail” named Abigail, Alan grinned lazily. How rare.

  “Aye, I’m awake, thankee, Abigail.”

  Alan slid the bed-curtains on the inner side of the room back to let the heat of the fireplace in. The room was cold as charity.

  The girl was kneeling down by the grate, dropping fresh coal on the embers and stirring them up with a poker.

  “Hollo, you’re a new ’un, ain’t you?” Alan commented.

  “Started las’ week, sir,” the girl said, turning to give him a grin. She was a lovely little thing with new-penny coppery hair and blue eyes, not a minute older than fifteen or sixteen, he noted. “Your man already done took your letters, sir. But he says to me on his way out, he says, I’m to wake you, an’ ask you for your key so’s I can make your tea, sir?”

  “Ah, right,” Alan said. “In my waist-coat pocket.”

  She passed out of his sight to the foot of the bed and
he heard something rustle as she picked up his clothes from the floor where he’d dropped them. Then she came back to the open side of the bed.

  “This be it, sir?” she asked him. Close to, he saw that she had a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her saucy, upturned little nose.

  “Aye, that’s it.”

  “An’ what’ll you be havin’ this morning’, sir? Tea? Coffee? Chocolate?” she asked.

  “Do you make good coffee, Abigail?” Alan asked her, sitting up higher against the pillows. “I mean, really good coffee?”

  “I reckon I can, sir,” she replied, a trifle dubious.

  “Grind the beans fine as corned gunpowder. Use a heaping spoonful per cup, mind, don’t scrimp,” Alan instructed. “Water hot as the hinges of Hell, none of this tepid water. And let it steep and drip until all the water’s gone down into the pot, or the cup.”

  “Aye, sir, I’ll do it, s’help me, though I know nothin’ ’bout gunpowder, sir,” she promised earnestly. “Toast, too, sir? Or d’you want me t’ go out an’ get some rolls for you?”

  “What sort of a day is it, Abigail?” Alan asked.

  “’Tis that cold, sir, t’would make a stone cupid shiver,” she informed him. “Snow up t’ the bottom steps already, an’ ice under. An’ more comin’ down, sir, like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “Toast, then, from the kitchens. No sense slipping and breaking your pretty young pate for my pleasure,” Alan said, grinning. “First, I need a kettle of hot water for shaving, and then the breakfast.”

  “I’ll do her, sir!” Abigail said as she curtsied her way out.

  Alan steeled himself, then slid out of bed and toe-walked to his stockings and slippers on the icy cold floorboards. He stripped off his nightshirt and bundled it into the armoire, donned a clean pair of white canvas slop-trousers from his sea-chest, and the heavy dressing gown.