King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER NINE

He thought it good policy to knock, not just barge in. It took a long two minutes, though, before anyone responded to the rapping of his doorknocker. A sour-looking older woman in a sack gown and mob cap opened the door, looked him up and down as she might inspect a drunken, reeling house-breaker, and in a pinched-nostriled and pursed-lipped impatient way, haughtily enquired, "Yes? And what is it that you want of this house, sir?"

"I live here…… It's mine" Lewrie snarled back. "Step lively and tell Mistress Lewrie that Captain Lewrie's home," he said, walking past the mort, swirling off his boat-cloak, and sailing his gilt-laced cocked hat at the hall tree. "Now?" Lewrie prompted the woman who was balking in prim outrage. "Devil take it… hulloa, the house!" Lewrie bellowed in his best quarterdeck voice. "Anyone to home?" He barely had time to take in the black-and-white chequered marble of his foyer, the family portraits on the walls, the twin Venetian bombй chests at either side of the staircase, before chaos befell him.

First, bugling in alarm, came a setter belonging to his elder son, Sewal-lis, closely escorted by a fluffy, yapping ball of fur he thought was a Pomeranian, with his younger son, Hugh, galloping down the stairs and squealing in eleven-year-old glee, whooping like a Red Indian!

"You're home, oh, you're home!" Hugh cried, all but tackling his papa. "Home for Christmas, huzzah!"

With Sewallis, ever a much more staid lad, now fourteen, came a second setter, sniffing arseholes with the first and circling about the reunion in a quandary whether to defend the house or go into paroxysms of delight. The fluff-ball, the Pomeranian, had no doubts about the matter; he would continue to yap, growl, and go for the boots of the intruder… once he'd worked up the nerve.

"Sewallis, give us a kiss, lad," Lewrie bade, arms outstretched to give his eldest a warm hug. "Best Christmas ever, ain't it? All of us home, for once? Damme, but ye've grown! You, too, Hugh. Two fine young gentlemen, ye've turned out t'be."

"What did you bring us for Christmas, father?" Hugh asked with an impish look.

"Me… peace… and a waggon-load o' presents," Lewrie assured him. "Where's Charlotte? Where's my little Charlotte, hey? And, can someone shut this wee hair-ball up?" he added as the Pomeranian at last worked up enough nerve to nip at his left boot, and get shoved by a swift leg thrust.

Just in time for his daughter to appear on the landing and let out an outraged squeal of alarm to see her beloved lap-yapper be assailed. She came dashing downstairs to scoop the little dog up in her arms, quickly step back a few paces, and glare accusingly.

"Charlotte, there ye are, darlin'," Lewrie said. "Won't ya come and give your papa a welcomin' kiss?"

"You hurt my dog!" she cried, cradling it like a baby; a madly barking, squirming, bloodthirsty little baby yearning for his throat.

"I never, dearest, he was…," Lewrie objected, then quieted as his wife descended the stairs, seemingly in no great hurry to welcome her husband back from the wars, and the sea. "Caroline," he said in a much soberer taking. "I'm home for Christmas."

"For so we see, my dear," Caroline coolly responded, both arms folded across her chest. "Your only letter did not inform us of just when you'd appear. When your affairs in London would be done."

That citron-sour housekeeper came down the stairs to stand near her mistress, still scowling as fierce as a Master-At-Arms might at a defaulter due at Captain's Mast for his fifth Drunk on Watch.

Ouch! Lewrie thought, striving manful not to wince at the chill.

"Your timing is impeccable, though," Caroline continued, with a tad of relenting welcome. "Supper will be ready in an hour."

Desmond and Furfy came bustling in at that awkward moment, hands full of sea-bags and carpet satchels; the waggoner followed with a sea-chest, and the dogs went silly once more.

"Uhm… this is my man, Liam Desmond, Caroline… children," Lewrie told them, "My Cox'n since we fought the L'Uranie frigate in the South Atlantic. His mate, Patrick Furfy, who'll be tending to the horses and such… He's a way with animals… "

Sure enough, Furfy did, for right after he'd dropped his burden he whistled and clapped his hands, and the two setters trotted to him, tails a'wag, tongues lolling, and their hind-quarters squirming in joy as he cosseted them with soft words, pets, and crooning Irish phrases.

"We've a stableman already, husband, so…," Caroline began.

"Then we've another, dear," Lewrie baldly told her.

"Oh, very well," Caroline resignedly replied, stiffening a bit. "Mistress Calder, pray show Captain Lewrie's men to his chambers."

"Yes, Missuz," the older mort said, her mouth rat-trapping.

"We've the dray to unload, as well," Lewrie said.

"Then pray do so through the kitchen doors, and do not let any more heat out through the front," Caroline instructed.

"I'll pay the coachee and have the waggon shifted," Lewrie said, hiding a sigh. "Quite a lot of dainties… liqueurs, caviar t'stow in the pantry?" he tempted her, hoping for some enthusiasm.

"Mistress Calder will show them where to put things," Caroline said, turning to head "aft" for the kitchens herself.

"The waggoner'll stay over for the night," Lewrie told her.

"I'll tell cook to lay three more places in the scullery," she announced, then turned and departed with nary a hug, a kiss, or even a a promise of one.

Petronius had it right, Lewrie sadly thought, recalling another snatch of Latin poetry: "Reproach and Love, all in a moment, For Hercules himself would be a Torment!"

An hour later and it was time for supper. Lewrie had hung his uniforms and civilian suitings in the armoire, stowed his shirts and such in a chest-of-drawers, and had made a fair start on emptying his heavy sea-chest… in a guest bed-chamber at the end of the upstairs hall right above his library and office. He'd borne his swords down to that office-library, just in time to witness Mrs. Calder remove the last of the linen covers from wing chairs and settee, and stoke up the fireplace… as if in his absence, the only thing used there was the desk and the leather-padded chair behind it, for farm accounting. Desmond followed him in with his weapons; his breech-loading Ferguson rifle-musket, the long-barrelled fusil musket, the rare Girandoni air-powered rifle, twin to the one that had almost killed him at Barataria Bay in Spanish Louisiana, and his boxed pistols.

From the stairs onwards, his children had followed him as close at his heels as Sewallis's setters, the boys goggling at the firearms and swords. Lewrie hung his French grenadier-pattern hanger above the mantel and stood his hundred-guinea presentation small-sword in a wooden rack, along with five more small-swords of varying worth and quality that he'd captured from the French.

"Ehm… are not surrendered swords handed back to the owners?" Sewallis hesitantly asked, tentatively fingering each one.

"They usually are, Sewallis," Lewrie told him with a grin, "but that's hard t'do if they're no longer among the living. That fancy'un there, that was L'Uranie's captain's sword, but he was dead by the time we boarded and took her. A couple of them belonged to Frog Lieutenants, who perished, too. None of the French prisoners would be in a position t'take 'em home to their next of kin… on parole here in England, or refused, and ended in the hulks, so I kept them. Got the dead men's names jotted down, and stuck the notes in the scabbards, so I s'pose I could forward 'em t'Paris someday soon. No time for that, not as long as the war was still on. Don't play with 'em, Hugh. They aren't toy swords. Neither are any of these fire-locks."

"Sir Hugo lets us, when he's down from London," Hugh objected. "He lets us shoot, for real! And he's taught us some fencing, too. Said we should take classes from a fencing master."

"Then we'll give that Girandoni air-rifle a try, once the holidays are over," Lewrie promised, taking a welcome seat in a wing chair before the blazing fire, and motioning the boys to sit on the settee. "Mind, it's not a toy, either, but… if my father allows you use of muskets and pistols already, I think we could have some fun with it. It's very good for silent huntin'."

Charlotte had trailed him round the house, too, though silent as a dormouse, lugging her lap dog, by name of Dolly, as if restraining the little beast from attacking him. Now she was seated in the wing chair opposite Lewrie's, legs sticking out and the dog in her lap, so it could glare and bare its teeth in comfort. Three setters-Dear God, how many are there? Lewrie asked himself-were sprawled before the hearth, and his cats were in the room as well. Toulon and Chalky were quite used to "ruling the roost," furry masters of both great-cabins and quarterdeck, but the big, slobbery setters' antics and curiosity had driven them to the mantel top-even Toulon, who was not all that agile-where they now lay slit-eyed, tail-tips now and then quivering, and folded into great, hairy plum puddings.

"Uhm… how long've ye had the pup, Charlotte?" Lewrie asked.

"Last Christmas," his nine-year-old daughter answered. "Uncle Governour and Aunt Millicent brought her from London."

"Takes a lot o' brushin', I'd imagine," Lewrie observed askance.

"Oh yes, she likes it so!" Charlotte replied. "Every day!"

"Know why she calls her Dolly, Papa?" Hugh said with a snigger. "'Cause she's ripped all t'other dolls t'shreds, ha ha!"

"Jealousy, is it?" Lewrie japed her.

"Just the one, Hugh! Don't be beastly!" Charlotte cried, hugging the dog closer. "She doesn't much care for cats, Papa. Nor do I," she announced.

"Ehm… were you really at Copenhagen, Papa?" Sewallis asked. "And did you see Admiral Nelson?"

"Saw him, spoke with him the night before the battle, and then after it was over, too," Lewrie answered. "Did I not write you about it? And how they sent us into the Baltic t'scout the enemy fleets and the ice… all by our lonesome? Hah! Wait 'til ye see the furs that I had t' wear! Swaddled up like a Greenland Eskimo!"

"Ahem!" Mrs. Calder said from the door to the library, looking as if she disapproved of parents speaking with children. "Mistress Caroline says to tell you that supper is served. Come, children. Yours is laid out in the little dining room."

"Aw! We want t'eat with papa," Hugh griped.

"Yes, why can't we all eat together?" Sewallis complained. "He just got home!"

"It's not-" Mrs. Calder began to instruct.

"Aye, it's high time for a family supper!" Lewrie announced as he sprang from his chair. "Shift their place settings, and there's an end to it. We've catching up t'do, right?"

"Huzzah!" Hugh exclaimed, and even Sewallis, who'd always put Lewrie in mind of a solemn "old soul" due to take Holy Orders, beamed with glee and chimed in his own wishes.

Beats dinin' alone with Caroline all hollow, Lewrie thought as they trooped out; oh, it has t'happen soon, but for now… use 'em as so many rope fenders! She can't scream an throw things at me if the kiddies are present… right?