Troubled Waters

by Dewey Lambdin

  So Lewrie was, for the first time since 1793, "beached," and on half-pay, and odds were, even were he most honourably acquitted, there would most likely not be a welcome return to HMS Savage and the circle of officers, warrants, petty officers, and hands he'd come to know so well. His solid support was now trimmed to Aspinall, his cook and manservant, Cox'n Liam Desmond and his mate Patrick Furfy, and the cats.

  Once "beached," Lewrie feared there might not ever be another sea-going command; it would be easy enough for Admiralty to look past him, let him slowly climb in seniority on the Post-Captains' List, pay him the portion of half-pay, and allow his "taint" slowly evaporate as a bad memory, like a fool or cripple who'd been "Yellow Squadroned."

  Oh, when he'd delivered all his accounts to Admiralty, people there had been polite and civil, not even brusque with him at all . . . though there had been a few cooling their heels in the Waiting Room who had glared at him. Most officers and civil servants, once they'd either recognised him, or learned his name, had gone shy and cutty-eyed as if they really wished to cry "My God, you're tkat'unl" or turned so bland and distracted by other things that they might as well have given him the "cut direct." Some had seemed genuinely sympathetic, those who approved of his slave stealing, but some made cow-eyes to his face, and troweled it on much too thick, "pissing down his back" 'til out of his sight so they might snigger over his predicament, and Lewrie could not decide which half galled him the most. He felt a raging need to hop down the nearest landing stairs and go do something innocent, silly, and mindless, go cut capers on the ice and plaster people with snowballs, chat up just anyone, even toothless harridans from Wapping or Billingsgate!

  "Circus . . . cross the river, there," Burgess said at his elbow, in a soft voice. "Wigmore's Peripatetic Extravaganza. They've set up their winter quarters in Southwark, near Vauxhall Gardens."

  "Peripatetic?" Lewrie scoffed. "He's found a dictionary. Was 'Travelling' no longer good enough?"

  "Doing a grand business, I'm told," Burgess said, shrugging his shoulders; most-like to warm himself than anything else.

  "Gentlemen, my feet are freezing," Mr. MacDougall griped, shivering, and punctuating his statement with an actual Brrr. "We need to thaw out in front of a roaring fireplace, at the chop-house."

  "No chance we'll run into the Beaumans there, is there?" Lewrie asked as he reluctantly turned away from the river, after a final peek cross the Thames to see if he could espy anything exotic or circus-y. If he couldn't make a fool of himself at the Frost Fair, then dinner in a warm place would have to do, so long as the said warm place came with lashings of drink, and yes, at the moment, images of hot punch or mugs of mulled wine, laced with spices, and half-aboil from the insertion of a red-hot fire poker, would suit, as would hot chocolate heavily laden with sugar and rum.

  "Lord no, Alan!" Burgess hooted as they resumed their brisk pace into Savoy Street. "Your father, and Mister Twigg, have seen to that. The last I heard, the Beaumans had been hounded far out past Islington . . . ran out of London lodgings months ago."

  "Lord, what have they done?" Lewrie wondered aloud. "There are few hoteliers or lessors who want loud mobs in their streets, day and night. Rocks through the window glass, pamphlets put up 'gainst their doors, damning them as allies of slavers . . . heaps of horse dung piled on their stoops? People of the Quality barging in at all hours, denouncing them, and running off their other renters? Your father reckons that even the worst lodgings cost them four or five times the going rate, for the annoyance, and to cover damages."

  "Their Black body-servants absconded," MacDougall added, cackling in glee. "Members of the Abolitionist Society made known to them that slavery doesn't exist in England, and that the Beaumans hadn't any claim over them. They took 'leg hail' just weeks after your appearance in court, and have found paying employment. Hugh Beauman and his regal young wife are now reduced to the very dregs of servants, who as soon as they're told how rich the Beaumans are, and how beastly, can demand triple wages!"

  "And odd it is, Alan," Burgess gleefully told him as they neared the chop-house's doors, "how so many of them who will take their wages and abide their brute ways, come from Mister Twigg's people. S'truth! There's more than bodyguards and bully-bucks in Twigg's employ. Servants hear and see everything, don't ye know. Hellish-good thing for the nation; to have ears and eyes working for foreigners who mean our country harm . . . or keeping an eye on devils in human guise."

  "London became too hot for them," MacDougall said as he opened the heavy oak door, "even mplain clothing and disguises, every time they ventured out, here came a shower of shit and garbage. Think of it . . . no galleries, no shopping, no theatre! Drury Lane, the Haymarket, Covent Garden, a coffeehouse, all denied them. I could almost pity them . . . almost, mind, that they could not obtain a decent meal. Such as we do now, ha ha! Good afternoon, Mister Sloane, a table by a fire!" he cried to the proprietor.

  Just as Lewrie was about to enter, though, a snowball smashed into the back of his cocked hat, knocking it off his head, and he spun about, looking for the culprit, ready to scoop up a slushy handful and retaliate with a well-packed, icy "stinger" of his own.

  "Damn my eyes, that's . . . !" he gawped. "No, couldn't be." He got a glimpse of a young woman in a fur-trimmed green cloak, a hint of raven-coloured hair under the hood, before whoever it was disappeared round the corner of a building into the busy Strand. For just a fleeting second, he wondered if it had been Eudoxia Durschenko.

  No, couldn 't be her, he told himself as he entered the doors to hand over his hat, cloak, and sword belt to a servant. Though whoever had hit him had done it square, right in the centre of the up-turned back of his hat, and Eudoxia had been raised to be a crack shot with a firearm, or her recurved Asian bow. Circus cross the Thames, we were talkin' of it, and any impish young miss with dark hair, I'd take for Eudoxia. Coincidence. Besides, hurt as she was in Cape Town when she found I was married, I'd more expect an arrow 'tween my shoulder blades!

  MacDougall was an enthusiastic regular once he had discovered a new place to dine, and evidently had given this new chop-house quite a lot of his custom, the last few months or so, and, in his line of work brought people he represented, as well, who most-like became regulars, too . . . assuming they hadn't been hung or imprisoned. That explained the grand table they were given, right by one of the fireplaces that was stoked and drawing so well that waves of heat could be seen coming from it in airy ripples, and air could be heard whooshing in the flue; it was almost medieval with all the brass and dark, polished oak walls, the overhead beams and stout tables and chairs.

  Lewrie unbuttoned his coat lapels before sitting down, away from the waves of heat; some things could be over-done, and he didn't wish to be one of them by the time they had fed.

  "Hot drinks all round?" MacDougall heartily suggested. "Mulled wine or hot cider? Punch, or candled brandy?"

  "Mulled wine for me," Lewrie declared, as did Burgess. Sadler went for chocolate and brandy, obviously a man with a sweet tooth.

  "Now, before we order, Captain Lewrie, I must tell you my good news," MacDougall said with a cherubic, impish smile worthy of a Puck, and rubbing his chilled hands together in joy. "We now possess all the affidavits and depositions necessary for your defence, sir, including a letter from your old friend, former Leftenant-Colonel Cashman, now of Wilmington . . . North or South Carolina, I can never keep which is which straight. . . stating that your Black volunteers intended to run away to sea as true volunteers, along with a dreadful account of how harsh were their lives had they not. Since he was a rueful slaveowner for a time himself, his account is most emotional, and compelling. I intend to have it read, just before putting your surviving Black sailors up to testify, so they may expand upon Cashman's . . ."

  "Then you'd better grow wings, or learn t'swim like a seal, if that's yer intent, Mister MacDougall," Lewrie all but yelped. "I'm no longer in command, and Savage has a new captain. For all I know, she may have already completed re-st
oring, and sailed for God knows where!"

  "Hmm, that'll never do," MacDougall fussily prosed on, once he'd gotten his lower jaw back in place from a ghastly-looking gasp. "Good God above! Well, has she departed, we'll simply have to get her back, that's all there is to it. I'll have a word with Admiralty, get Twigg to toddle over there and use his influence. Failing that, the lack of live witnesses could be grounds for a continuance 'til their return."

  "What?" Lewrie barked, astonished. "Mean t'say, I could wait months . . . 'til next Hilary Term t'get this settled? Is she ordered halfway round the world, it might he years 'fore she's back!"

  You silly, bloody, civilian sod! Lewrie silently fumed; I knew ye sounded too good t'be true, ye . . . Tom-Noddy! Just trot over and ask Admiralty t' whistle up a frigate? I'm good as hung . . . swingin' and dangling! Don'tye know there's a war on, ye ignorant. . . Gawd!

  "Alan has allies in Commons, and Lords," Burgess said with a hopeful sound, somewhat akin to whistling past a graveyard to Lewrie's ears. "A bit of pressure from politicians might help."

  "Exactly so, sir," MacDougall rejoined, sounding like a fellow clutching straws, too. "Wilberforce and his people, as well, who are in both Houses of Parliament, may employ their interest and patronage links with the Navy. They must be . . . oh, what is the military term for it, Mister Chiswick?"

  "Mustered, sir?" Burgess eagerly supplied.

  "Lashed aloft," Lewrie sourly muttered under his breath, after he had gotten his breath back.

  "Mustered. Exactly," MacDougall perked up, as though this snag was but a minor quibble, soon to be amended. "Ah, our drinks are here! I dare say, though, that, foul as the weather has been, there is a good possibility that Captain Lewrie's ship . . . former ship, is still tied up in port."

  Civilians! Lewrie fumed some more, aghast at the fellow's lack of knowledge; and wondering, did the Beaumans prevail, could he have a quiet minute alone with the man, so he could strangle him to death; he must think we don't go t'sea in snowstorms, when it's too cold, or wet!

  "Even without Captain Lewrie's Black sailors, there are the former body-servants of the Beaumans," MacDougall blathered on after he had taken a sip or two of his hot, brandy-laced cider. "They can tell the court horrific tales of how badly they were treated. Why, with any luck, they might have known some of the volunteers themselves, if they ever visited that particular Beauman plantation on Portland Bight, and may speak for them and their motives in 'stealing themselves' and seeking freedom in the Royal Navy."

  "Uhm . . . " Now Burgess was doubtful, and was about to explain the vast gulf 'twixt house slaves and field slaves, and the prejudices the well-dressed, well-fed, and lightly worked house servants held about their darker, more helpless kind. Burgess matched eyes with Lewrie, a fellow who had also seen real slavery in action. The arrival of a man in a blue apron and the house's unofficial livery with the slate menu bearing chalked-in specials interrupted him.

  "Oh, good!" MacDougall exclaimed chearly. "They have both the venison and the jugged hare today. Capital!"

  Lewrie felt like lowering his head to the tabletop and banging away 'til he knocked himself temporarily senseless; that, or the urge to spend the rest of the day, and the evening, amassing a ragingly good drunk!

  "Uhm, perhaps a dab of haste might be, ah . . . ? Lewrie hinted. "Oh, right. Sorry, Mister Sadler, but I will make it up to you. Do return to the office and write out a special plea for those members of Captain Lewrie's crew to be kept handy for their appearance before the Lord Justice," MacDougall instructed, turning very business-like. "We have the names and ranks already, from the depositions and witness list. Copy to Admiralty, copy to Lord Justice Oglethorpe, and a copy to Mister Twigg. Fast horse to Portsmouth with the orders to stay in port as soon as you receive them, mind. Twigg will be grand help in that."

  "Yes, sir," Mr. Sadler said with a resigned sigh, then finished his hot drink, wiped the cocoa froth from his upper lip, and arose to reclaim his hat and greatcoat and gloves.

  "Even if she sails, 'twill be the fault of the Admiralty that I cannot present my complete defence," MacDougall gaily said, "and solid proof will be at hand that the Lord Justice issued an order for her to be held. A continuance will naturally be granted, instanter. Now . . . how does the turtle soup all round sound to you, sirs?"

  " 'Scuse me, sir," another waiter intruded as the first began to scribble their desires. "You'd be bein' a Captain Lewrie, sir? Lady said t'give ye this, sir."

  "A lady?" Lewrie found new cause to gawp aloud as he spun about on his chair and craned his neck to see who the lady in question was. All he could see in the chop-house's crowded tables, though, were men, and only the rare matron dining with her husband. He took the note and opened it, careful to act nonchalant; and not let either Burgess or his barrister get a peek at it over his shoulder.

  The first couple of lines, though, were written in some incomprehensible script that put him in mind of his equally unfathomable lessons in Greek, long ago. For all he knew, it could be a bill from some foreigner's laundry service where'd he'd left a bundle years before and had never returned to reclaim, or pay for, yet. . .

  Poor, darling man, I lern of trile to com, for taken Black felloes to mak them free, and am so angre they trect yoo so bad. Lern too yoo are alone now.

  I forgive yoo for break my heart.

  Holy shit! he thought, stunned; it was Eudoxia who clobbered me!

  I think much of yoo all time since yoo sail away to fite French. I miss yoor company and never we go shooting or hav outside dinner, race horses Ilk we say we do sum day in Africa. Time I see yoo last I say [something in Cyrillic] in yoor leters is paka snova . . . meaning is see you latter in Rossiya. Circus is winter over river. If yoo com I wood desire see yoo. New dramas and commedys. I hav the truble write in English, but may beyoo teech me beter? I pray for yoo and be in cort is trile begin.

  Eudoxia

  "A lady, hey?" Burgess enquired, trying not to sound too eager to know who it was from; he'd been in the middle of the lather 'tween Lewrie and his sister Caroline since getting back from India, and any new dalliance would only make things worse. Not that things were anywhere near good, already.

  "An admirer who wishes me well in court, Burgess," Lewrie lied, folding over the note again and slipping it into a coat pocket; not before the final line he'd first missed caught his eye.

  I hit with snoball good, yes?

  "And did the lady request a reply?" Lewrie asked the waiter who still hovered expectantly.

  "Nossir," the man said. "Jus' popped in long 'nough t'point ye out and gimme th' note."

  "Thankee for deliverin' it," Lewrie told him, digging into his breeches pocket for his coin purse, and giving the fellow a crown coin. He turned his full attention, pointedly so, to the other waiter who held the slate menu. "Roast venison and jugged hare, did ye say? That does sound toothsome. Turtle soup for me, as well, t'begin with. Seeing it is Christmastime, I'd admire a bit of your goose with the raspberry jam sauce, somewhere along the way . . . a salad between, of course. Right?"

  "Very good, sir."

  "What?" Lewrie all but yelped once he looked up to his partners at the table, who were both eying him rather charily at that point. "A fellow can't have supporters, and admirers?"

  "In your absence, Captain Lewrie," MacDougall sternly said with several slow negative shakes of his head, "Mister Twigg, your father, Sir Hugo, and Major Chiswick here have adverted to me that your relations with your wife are . . . strained. And, they had confided to me the reasons why, d'ye see, sir. As your legal representative in a serious matter, it is my professional advice to you, Captain Lewrie, that such doings must be kept strictly in check, and the Reverend Wilber-force and other supporters of yours, who are so far true admirers of yours, must not hear of any new escapades, so long as your trial continues. Else, they will withdraw all support . . . publicity tracts, favourable letters to the papers, and monetary aid, placing the financial burden of your defence upon your own purse.
"

  "Ye mean they haven't heard already?" Lewrie gawped, finding it hard to believe that his father's formerly bad repute would not be enough to put them right off, and "the acorn don't fall far from the oak" and all that nonsense. Surely Twigg must have filled them in, somewhere along the line, he could not help thinking!

  "You are, sir, or so I have led them to believe with what little I have had to reveal," MacDougall most carefully said, "a victim of a jealous termagant."

  "Oh, I say!" Burgess disputed, in defence of his sister. "A Colonial Loyalist from the Carolinas," MacDougall prosed on, his voice low, and frowning heavily to show that it wasn't personal, as if he disagreed with a disagreeable charade. "Three children enough in her mind, and yet jealous in the extreme. And the long separation demanded by your service to King and Country hasn't helped her suspicions. Those anonymous letters, complete fabrications, have driven her to distraction, and you have been estranged from your wife almost since the war with France began. Primly moral the members of the Abolitionist Society, and the Clapham Sect, may be, but, they are also realists, at bottom, and know, as ministers of the Gospel surely must, the limits of a man's resistance to temptations of the flesh.

  "They also know that such temporary dalliances, ones which don't result in rival affairs of the heart, and the rending of families, are sometimes unavoidable . . . as evinced by men of the upper class who take mistresses to spare their wives the perils of further childbirth. Deplorable, but sometimes necessary, d'ye see."

  I can fuck, but I better not kiss on the way out the door? Lewrie thought in puzzlement; the ministers tolerate prostitution? Mine arse on a band-box! Missed that wheedle in the Good Book!