King, Ship, and Sword

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wonder of wonders, domestic relations took an even sweeter turn as Spring progressed, as Sewallis and Hugh returned from their school for the summer and filled the house with japes, pranks, and laughter. There were more family rides together, more companionable breakfasts, walking tours of the farm through sheep, cattle, and foals, nattering with day labourers and their few permanent employees, and yarns from Liam Desmond and Patrick Furfy about battles and grand adventures.

The Lewries even went visiting, as a travelling troupe; first to High Wycombe to attend Burgess and Theodora's nuptials, then up to London for some major shopping, and, lastly, down to the Langlies' at Horsham, in Kent, to visit with Sophie and her husband and in-laws. Even Lewrie's father, Sir Hugo, had coached down for that'un, for he'd always been doting-fond of Sophie, as she had been of him, her replacement grand-pиre.

Lodgings, well… they could reach London in a day, but once there, their favourite old haunt in Willis's Rooms, convenient to all the best shops and sights, could only accommodate so many guests, in so many beds. Charlotte and the boys could be bedded down on cots or in one nearby room. Lewrie and his wife were forced to share a bed-stead of their own… together.

The same arrangements were forced upon them halfway to the wedding at High Wycombe, and in a posting house in the town, as well, and the jaunt to Horsham not only forced Alan and Caroline to sleep in the same bed on the way, but, once there, Mr. and Mrs. Langlie insisted upon putting them up at their house, assuming that Capt. and Mrs. Lewrie were just another typical married couple who naturally shared a bed-chamber!

Perhaps it was the joy of Burgess's wedding, perhaps the relit notion of Romance (and a slew of wines and brandies taken aboard during the day!) but… Alan and Caroline found themselves in such close proximity, in such companionable darkness, and in such thin summer sleeping clothes, that Nature at last had its way. And in the mornings after such enforced intimacies, Caroline expressed such fondness and affection that Lewrie could imagine that their years' long bitterness had been no more than a quickly forgotten little spat over her paying too much for a new bonnet!

And even more miraculous was the fact that, once back home in Anglesgreen, there was no more of that damnable guest chamber for him. Lewrie was back in his wife's good graces… though he hadn't a clue how it had come about! Indeed, so content with things did she seem that Caroline could even abide a mid-Summer visit from Sir Hugo, down from London for a spell of country life. He'd never been one of her favourite relations, yet…

"More cool tea?" Caroline asked Sir Hugo as they all sat in the shade of an oak near the back-garden of the house. "Or might you be more partial to the lemonade?"

"The tea, m'dear, thankee kindly," Sir Hugo replied, sprawled in a slat chair near the table, and idly fanning himself, for it was a warmish afternoon. "That rob o' lemon drink makes me gaseous. Just a dollop o' lemon in the tea's sufficient."

A wasp now and then hummed about the sweetness of the lemonade or the napkin-covered plates of scones or sandwiches. Horses snorted, neighed, and clopped as Patrick Furfy walked them in circles in the paddock. Cattle lowed as calves butted for their milk; and it was almost so quiet as to be able to hear sheep munching grass. Except for the children, of course.

Charlotte sat at-table primly enough, to all appearances in her style of hair and gown a miniature adult, though she did tend to prate cooing nonsense to her newest doll and that damned lap dog of hers. Sewallis and Hugh were on their knees, sailing their model frigates at each other over a close-mowed green "sea" and ordering their sailors about, just ready to open fire.

Lewrie sat sprawled in an equal un-tidyness in a chair on the other side of the table, a wide-brimmed straw farmer's hat set low on his eyebrows, one eye open for the shrill argument to come over "first broadsides" and what "damage" the boys' guns had done to the other one's hull or rigging.

"Have you ever been to Paris, or to France, Sir Hugo?" Caroline casually enquired.

Halloa, what's that? Lewrie thought.

"France?" Sir Hugo scoffed. "Can't say that I have, d'ye not count Calais. Was in Holland, for a time, d'ye see, and… found it more convenient t'return t'England through Calais," he breezed off.

Haw! Lewrie silently sneered.

Long ago, when a Captain in the 4th Regiment of Foot, the King's Own, he scampered off from his "wife," Elizabeth Lewrie, once he discovered that some of his fellow officers had bamboozled him with a "false justice," a sham wedding, and an elopement to Holland, there to wait for the riches that should have come with his mother's dowry and goods. Once Sir Hugo'd discovered that there would be no quick fortune, that a very pregnant girl was boresome, nagging, and a burden on his shrinking purse, and that he was, technically, as free as larks, he had fled her, taking her jewelry along, and danced his way back to London!

"Didn't know that," Lewrie commented. "I thought you'd sailed direct from Amsterdam." He tilted up the brim of his hat to peer at Sir Hugo's answer to that, tacitly jeering.

"Got distracted," Sir Hugo rejoined with a toothy fuck-ye-for-asking smile. "Why d'ye ask, m'dear?"

"Well… now we're at peace with France," Caroline tentatively said as she poured a glass of tea for herself, "and it seems that they mean for it to last… I was thinking on what Sophie and her husband told us of their jaunt over there. It may not be like a Grand Tour of the Continent, as wealthier folk than we undertake, yet… I must own to a certain… curiosity."

Very rich members of the aristocracy considered a Grand Tour of France, Holland, some of the Germanies, Spain, and Portugual, and, of course, the ruins of ancient Rome and the "artistic" cities of Italy, with a stopover in Vienna and Venice, a necessity for the "finishing" of their Well-educated and polished children. And to seek bargains in paintings, sculptures, and gold and silver work to enhance the furnishings of their mansions and estates.

"Seen Toulon, at least," Lewrie harrumphed. "Spots ashore in the Gironde, to boot. That's enough o' France t'hold me for a lifetime. A squalid damned place, Toulon. Dirtier than Cheapside or Wapping. No, I don't mean you, cat. You know t'bathe, if the Frogs don't," he had to tell his black-and-white torn, who, at the mention of his name, leaped into Lewrie's lap. Not to be left out of it, Chalky came trotting to join Toulon, abandoning his butterfly hunt.

"It would be educational for the boys," Caroline went on in an offhanded way. "Improve their French, which every civilised man must speak."

"Je suis un crayon, mort de ma vie," Lewrie quipped.

"Oh, tosh!" Caroline objected. "So you're a pencil, are you… death of your life?"

"Papa's a pencil?" Charlotte gawped, then burst into titters.

In point of fact, Lewrie's French was abysmal; execrably bad.

"I s'pose a tour o' France might teach 'em something, m'dear," Sir Hugo told her. "How vile are the French… so they hate 'em as bad as the Devil hates Holy Water, th' rest o' their lives, haw haw!"

"Perhaps as a… proper honeymoon," Caroline said, lowering her eyes and going a tad enigmatic. "As Sophie and Anthony did not have when they wed, with his ship ready to put back to sea as soon as the wind shifted. As short as ours was… recall, Alan?"

There had been one short night at a posting house in Petersfield and two weeks at the George Inn in Portsmouth, with him gone half the time fitting out little HMS Alacrity for her voyage to the Bahamas.

"Hemm," uttered both Lewrie and his father, for both knew what she was driving at, and the reason for it.

"You're sunk!" Hugh yelled. "I shot you clean through!."

"Did not!" Sewallis loudly objected. "I dis-masted you, so you can't move!"

"Can too!" from Hugh, face-down on the grass to shove his ship.

"Ships don't sink!" Sewallis insisted, shuffling on his knees to move his model frigate. Hugh's followed, at a rate of knots.

"Do too! They burn… they blow up! You're on fire!"

"Lads!" Lewrie barked, springing from his chair and scattering cats. "Leave off!" Another instant and they'd be rolling and pummelling each other. "Here, let me show you how things go."

Lewrie knelt on the grass, green stains on the knees of his old and comfortable white slop-trousers bedamned. "Now, which of ye is the enemy?"

Both pointed at the other accusingly, faces screwed up.

"Let's say the wind's from there, from the stables and the paddock," he instructed, "so you both should be sailin' this way, on the same course. Sewallis has the wind gage, aye, but his larboard guns can't elevate high enough to dis-mast ye, Hugh. You, on the other hand, in his lee, can shoot high enough… "

And, as he explained to his sons, a couple of curious setters, and both cats, that it was very rare for a ship to be sunk in action, that extreme pains were taken to prevent fires, and that it might take an hour or better to batter a foe into submission, Caroline looked on with a fond smile on her face, the very picture of contentment as she absently jammed a fresh scone for Charlotte.

"Ye look… pleased with life, m'dear," Sir Hugo pointed out.

"In the main I am, sir, thank you," she told him with a grin.

"France, though… Paris?" Sir Hugo queried with a scowl.

"Perhaps a second honeymoon,… as I said. A proper one this time," she answered, Though she was smiling, the determined vertical furrow 'twixt her brows was prominent. "After all I've had to put up with… I believe we owe it to each other. A fresh beginning."

"That he owes you, more t'th' point?" Sir Hugo leered.

"Indeed," Caroline rejoined with a slow, firm nod.